TRIBUTES 



g MEMORY OF 



ABNER FIELD 




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Book. 



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With the Compliments of 
The Family of Walbridge A. Field 



TRIBUTES 

TO THE MEMORY OF 

WALBRIDGE ABNER FIELD 




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TRIBUTES IE BAR 



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SU] E JUD1 






WALBRI! Al 

MEMOIRS READ BEFORE IS 



1905 






WALBRIDGE ABNER FIELD 
Born, April 26, 1833 
Died, July 15, 1899 



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CONTENTS 

QH}e 3Sar ai t!je (Eommonfoealtfj 

Page 

Address of Alexander S. Wheeler 9 

Hon. James R. Dunbar 11 

Solomon Lincoln 13 

Moorfield Storey 15 

" Herbert Parker 17 

Charles T. Gallagher 20 

Supreme Juotctal Court ai tjje (EGmmonfoealtfj 

Address of Attorney General Knowlton 23 

Resolutions 28 

Response of Chief Justice Holmes 30 

Sftesalutt'ons 

Resolutions of the Alumni of Dartmouth College .... 35 

Resolutions of the Vermont Association 36 

Resolutions of the Curtis Club 36 

2Hje j/flassarfjusrtts historical iSorictg 

Remarks by Mr. Justice Barker 39 

Memoir by John Noble 45 



PROCEEDINGS. 

A MEETING of the Bench and Bar of the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts was held in the Supreme Court at 
Boston, November 25, 1899, to take action on the death of 
the late Chief Justice Walbridge Abner Field. 

The meeting was called to order by Causten Browne, and 
Lewis S. Dabney, President of the Bar Association of Suffolk 
County, was appointed chairman. William F. Wharton 
served as secretary. Alfred Hemenway read the resolutions, 
and they were adopted. Brief tributes followed. 

ADDRESS OF ALEXANDER S. WHEELER, ESQ. 

Since my admission to the bar some fifty-six years ago there have 
been six chief justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, not including 
the recently appointed and honored incumbent, all able men, who 
worthily filled their great office to the benefit of the people of the 
Commonwealth, to the satisfaction of the bar, and whose judicial 
decisions have given to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts a 
position second to that of no other in the United States. 

The career of Chief Justice Field was successful from the begin- 
ning. In college he was the first scholar, not only of his own class, 
but of all the classes during his college course, and to-day he is 
remembered at his Alma Mater as one of the best scholars of 
Dartmouth. 

After spending a year at Dartmouth as tutor he entered upon 
the study of law, and soon after his admission to the bar was associ- 
ated with the late Harvey Jewell ; and subsequently William Gaston 
became a member of the firm, which had a large and successful 

2 



10 ADDRESS OF ALEXANDER S. WHEELER. 

practice, the investigation of questions of law and preparation of 
legal arguments being largely in the hands of Mr. Field. 

Mr. Field tried but few cases to the jury as senior, and I do not 
think he had that gift of speech and some other qualities essential to 
the highest success as a jury lawyer. His strength lay in the con- 
sideration and argument of legal questions, and had he continued at 
the bar he would have undoubtedly attained a high rank and stood 
among the leaders. For this, his knowledge of the law, his power of 
reasoning, and his keen judgment, coupled with his industry, were 
amply sufficient. 

The late Judge Hoar, when appointed Attorney General of the 
United States, appointed Mr. Field Assistant Attorney General. 
He was subsequently elected a member of Congress, and while in 
that office was appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme 
Judicial Court, and on the death of Chief Justice Morton was ap- 
pointed his successor. His course was steadily onward and upward, 
due to the innate qualities of the man. 

Chief Justice Field was a man of the most resolute independence, 
morally and intellectually. His industry was indefatigable. He 
gave to every question the most careful and searching investigation 
in his power, and formed his conclusions after the most careful con- 
sideration. And when he had formed a conclusion he stood by it. 
He did not, he could not, surrender his judgment, unless convinced 
of error either in his premises, or his reasoning from those premises. 
When that was done, no pride of opinion prevented his yielding to 
what he became convinced was the more correct view. 

His intercourse with the bar was, so far as I had any opportunity 
of observing, uniformly courteous, and he was especially considerate 
toward the young members. They were sure of attention to their 
arguments, and kindly conduct toward themselves personally. Per- 
haps this is not always characteristic of judges, but it was a marked 
feature of the late Chief Justice. 

Chief Justice Field fully realized the responsibilities of his 
position as the head of the tribunal which administered the law to 
a great and rich Commonwealth. The rich and poor alike are sub- 
ject to its decisions and must conform to its judgments. Chief 



ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES R. DUNBAR. n 

Justice Field to the utmost of his ability sought to make those judg- 
ments conformable to law and justice. Others will give a more full 
and ample description of his work as Judge and Chief Justice. It 
is perhaps sufficient for me to say that he was worthy of his place, 
and discharged its duties in a manner worthy of the successor of the 
eminent men who had preceded him. 

As a man, Chief Justice Field had the respect of all who knew 
him. He was not only an able lawyer and magistrate, he was a 
good and useful citizen, interested, as every man should be, in all that 
concerned the Commonwealth and the whole community. Not an 
active politician in the present sense of that term, he was interested 
in the great political interests of his State and the whole Union. 
He exerted his influence in a quiet way in behalf of such measures 
and such men as he thought would be for the highest good of the 
whole people. He had a warm and generous heart. His capacity 
for friendship was large, and he had a large circle of warmly attached 
friends, who were always glad to meet him and enjoy his conversa- 
tion, and by whom his memory will ever be cherished. 



ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES R. DUNBAR. 

Op the positions to which high ambition and a consciousness of 
power may righfully lead a man to aspire, there are few which 
confer greater honor or call for the possession of wider knowledge, 
keener discrimination, more practical sense, tact, and patience than 
the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. The 
demands which its duties make upon the mind and strength, the 
traditions of the office, and the memory of the illustrious men who 
have conferred honor and distinction upon it, might well cause the 
strong and capable to hesitate before accepting so onerous and 
responsible a position. 

The work is not rewarded by the plaudits of the crowd, it 
affords no field for popular triumphs ; it gives honor and distinc- 
tion in the minds of but a narrow circle of the thoughtful and the 



12 ADDRESS OF HON. JAMES R. DUNBAR. 

studious. But it has always been worthily filled, at times by men 
the lustre of whose reputation has not been dimmed by the lapse 
of years — men worthy to rank with the great and illustrious of past 
generations. 

Into this office our late Chief Justice entered because the con- 
sensus of opinion of the bench and the bar pointed to him as the 
man fitted by character and attainment to hold it. Whatever doubt 
he personally may have had of his qualifications, they were shared 
by no others. 

The natural bent of his mind was scholarly. He had the scholar's 
accuracy of thought and felicity of expression, and the conservatism 
which comes from much study, experience, and reflection. 

He had an unusual capacity for the acquisition of knowledge, 
a characteristic which showed itself early, was marked in his college 
course, and continued through life, and his acquaintance in many 
departments of human knowledge was deep and wide. But to know 
this, one needed to meet him in social converse and draw him out ; 
he made no display — that was abhorrent to him at all times and in 
all places. He had the simplicity of an open, ingenuous mind, and 
the grasp and reach and analytic power of the trained reasoner and 
disputant. 

He loved the truth and sought it diligently and unweariedly, not 
from pride of opinion, for he had little of that ; not that he might 
appear to be right, but that he might feel firm ground beneath his 
feet and confidence in his own conclusions. 

He was always fair, tolerant of opinions which differed from his 
own, rapid in his mental processes, but never hasty in reaching 
conclusions, examining carefully every proposition, and, while tena- 
cious of opinions reached after careful consideration, was extremely 
modest in relying upon opinions not thus formed. 

I remember that in discussing with him one day a question of law, 
he stated a proposition of the correctness of which I expressed some 
doubt. Though he was right, he immediately looked it up, and having 
reason no doubt to fear that I might some day make an erroneous 
ruling on the point at nisi prius, he sent me within an hour two 
authorities on the point sustaining his proposition. 



ADDRESS OF SOLOMON LINCOLN. 13 

Judge Field possessed a highly nervous temperament, sensitive 
and responsive to every call of duty, but by virtue of a strong will 
and a clear mind he maintained a poise and steadfastness of char- 
acter and manner possessed by few. 

His makeup was that of the type of men who do some of the best, 
at times the greatest, work, but often at the expense of health or 
life. 

It was to be expected that with his temperament and his con- 
scientious devotion to duty he would not reach an advanced age ; 
but although his health was known to be uncertain, the end, when it 
came, found us unprepared. The death of a friend, the loss of a 
great mind and a noble character, to us is loss and only loss, and yet 
to him it could not be such. His life, though not long, was yet not 
brief. It was filled with high endeavor, with great accomplishment, 
with noble service. He was faithful unto death, and to such it can 
never be loss to exchange the life of service here for the life of 
higher service and greater usefulness beyond. 



ADDRESS OF SOLOMON LINCOLN, ESQ. 

Massachusetts has been so fortunate in her Chief Justices that 
we need not hesitate to apply to each of them Mr. Choate's wonder- 
ful description of the good judge. They have all possessed a large 
measure of the high qualities which are essential to that exalted 
station, and in describing these qualities we are in danger of falling 
into commonplace. Yet though they had much in common, each, of 
course, has his individual character. 

Although Chief Justice Field's practice at the bar was not of long 
duration, yet his varied experience as a college instructor and as a 
legislator added to that gained at the bar, and all acquired before he 
took his seat upon the bench, gave him a familiarity with men and 
with affairs which relieved his official bearing of stiffness and facili- 
tated the transaction of business in his court. 

He could measure men ; could penetrate their motives and their 
methods of action and their sincerity. He had keen insight. 



14 ADDRESS OF SOLOMON LINCOLN. 

He was a most industrious and painstaking student of the law. 
The quality of his mind was imaginative and inquisitive — perhaps 
more inclined to close inspection than to breadth of view. His 
opinions display thoughtful consideration of all aspects of his sub- 
ject, and his occasional dissents testify to his independence. Yet 
his mind, though fertile and inclined to be speculative, did not lack 
practical wisdom. He was not one of those who consider that to 
differ from others is a mark of independence or strength. He knew 
that often more courage is displayed in agreement than in dis- 
agreement. 

His judicial courtesy was unfailing. The day has no doubt 
passed when judges regard themselves as the superiors of the bar 
or as its antagonists ; yet even in this day of ameliorated manners 
Judge Field's gracious bearing, was conspicuous. It encouraged 
youth, and did not dismay even the mature promoter of doubtful 
law. He was not hasty nor intolerant, yet merciless to dishonor- 
able practice. 

This judicial manner was but the manifestation of a sweet personal 
character, the charm of which those who knew him in private must 
at once concede. His wide and curious reading made his conversa- 
tion entertaining, and he enlivened it by a considerable sense of 
humor. He brought and never lost something of the unconven- 
tional freshness of his early country youth. 

I have said that in our Chief Justices we assume high personal 
qualities as a matter of course. We make no mistake, and yet such 
qualities deserve perhaps a fuller recognition. 

It is no small thing so to live that the sum of life shall be a 
character and an integrity above the breath of suspicion. Such a 
breath never blew upon his fame. His sense of fair dealing and of 
honor was so delicate that he could only be perfectly at ease in some 
high position where such a sense could never be offended. It seemed 
to me that for such reasons he was not at home in Congress. After 
once losing a seat, to which I believe him to have been fully entitled, 
no doubt his self-respect prompted him to vindicate himself and the 
choice of the people of his district, and he succeeded in a second 
election ; but he made no special effort to distinguish himself in 



ADDRESS OF MOORFIELD STOREY. 15 

public life, and I do not doubt that he found the arts of political 
management thoroughly distasteful. 

He was direct and outspoken in the expression of his opinion. He 
took such part in the affairs of the community as his judicial station 
permitted. His religious belief was liberal, and he was a constant 
attendant at church. 

By his death we lose another leader. Those of us who, to our 
surprise, must consider ourselves the older practitioners feel that of 
late these losses have been very frequent. The generation of leaders 
whom we knew has chiefly disappeared. It seems as if none now 
stood out before their fellows as men did a few years since. Prob- 
ably men will not so stand out again. But Chief Justice Field stood 
among those leaders, and will be long remembered as the good citizen 
and the upright and learned judge. 



ADDRESS OF MOORFIELD STOREY, ESQ. 

His seniors and his contemporaries have spoken from their longer 
acquaintance and their more intimate knowledge of Chief Justice 
Field, and there is little that I can add to what they have said so 
well. I knew him from another side, for I was his junior by some 
years. When I first met him he was the Assistant Attorney General 
of the United States, and I was a law student. From then until his 
untimely death I saw him under many different circumstances, — as 
an opponent, as a leader, as a judge, and in friendly conversation. 
His was a character to win regard and to command confidence and 
respect. He was by nature a student, and he carried about him the 
serene atmosphere of the Library. His tastes were scholarly, and 
throughout his life he found the greatest pleasure in his books ; yet 
it was his fate to be constantly in the active world. He had little 
liking for the contests of our profession, — little of that instinctive 
partisanship which makes the lawyer see only with his client's eyes, 
and the politician adopt his party's conscience. He always seemed 
to me a dispassionate advocate, doing his full duty to his client, but 



16 ADDRESS OF MOORFIELD STOREY. 

never so carried away by the gaudium certaminis as not to take 
something of a spectator's interest in the conflict. 

He was singularly simple and unaffected, losing nothing of these 
rare qualities with age, success, and high preferment. By nature 
retiring, though always kindly and frank, he never sought office or 
honor ; but when they came, he accepted the responsibilities which 
they brought and did his duty with perfect fidelity. His most 
marked characteristic perhaps was his absolute conscientiousness, 
which made him always a severer critic of himself and his own work 
than he was of others. No one could know him and not recognize this, 
and with it his high sense of honor and his entire modesty. He was 
never arrogant nor self-assertive, always suggestive, not dogmatic. 
As a judge he possessed a keen intellect, a strong taste for research, 
an overmastering sense of duty, and untiring industry, — a combi- 
nation which never suffered him to spare himself or neglect any 
work which was given him to do. These, in combination with his 
moral qualities and his thorough training, fitted him peculiarly for 
the bench. If in some measure he lacked the dominant characteristics 
of his greatest predecessors, the difference was largely a difference 
of manner. The untiring patience and unfailing courtesy which he 
brought to his daily discharge of his duties smoothed the path for 
client and counsel alike, and they seem to us all the more remarkable 
when we remember under what distressing pain he often did his 
work during the later years of his judicial service. Alike at the bar 
and at the bench he upheld the highest standards of our profession, 
and both by his own actions and by the influence of his example was 
a strong force working for righteousness. 

An honorable opponent, a wise counsellor, an eminent magistrate, 
a just man, he has been for many years a gracious presence in our 
courts and it is with a deep sense of personal loss that we meet to 
pay our tribute to his memory. 



ADDRESS OF HERBERT PARKER. 17 



ADDRESS OF HERBERT PARKER, ESQ. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Suffolk Bar : 

By a courtesy entirely beyond any desert of my own, I am per- 
mitted to speak on this occasion when we assemble to pay tribute to 
the memory of the late Chief Justice Field. Fitting eulogy of him 
should find phrase and expression only in the loftiest eloquence, 
for the laurels that are laid on his grave are such as may be 
plucked only from the most exalted heights of human endeavor 
and achievement. 

I speak wholly from the inspiration of the moment, and I ask your 
indulgence to speak, only because of the profound earnestness and 
sincerity of the admiration I entertain, and shall hold always in mind 
and heart, for the stainless character, the pure life, the magnificent 
intellectual endowments given by him, with unselfish devotion, to the 
public service which he so long enlightened and honored. 

We meet in the shadow of sadness, conscious of a loss to which we 
may not be reconciled ; yet reflection tells us we have more to rejoice 
in than to lament, for it is of his life that we think and speak, and 
not of what we call his death. It is of the immortality to which he 
has attained, — not as by a deification sometimes accorded to the 
illustrious dead, for he was too manly, too quick with human sym- 
pathy and broad humanity, to pass from us to the clouds of an 
inaccessible Olympus. I am sure that the great jurist gains an 
immortality that may not be hoped for or attained through devotion 
to any other field of public service or professional life. No such en- 
during monuments are left to mark the triumphs or successes of the 
great soldier. Through his life he may have heard always the grate- 
ful acclamations of the people he had led. He may have won wide 
empires, and fixed the standards of his victories on their remotest bor- 
ders ; but when the sword shall fall from his nerveless hand, and a 
new generation and new leaders arise, new battles are fought, war- 
ring armies sweep over the fields he had won, and with their passing 
the evidences of his conquests are forever obliterated, disappearing 

3 



18 ADDRESS OF HERBERT PARKER. 

from the surface of the earth and from the recollection of his people. 
The glories of the diplomatists are as ephemeral as the human life 
that makes them possible, the maintenance of their treaties or alli- 
ances scarce surviving their inscription upon the recording parch- 
ment. The learned and skilful physician or surgeon must intrust 
his fame and the memory of his name, however distinguished, to the 
generation that knew his inspiring presence and the beneficent touch 
of his healing hand. His ministrations to suffering humanity must 
cease when death, which he stayed from visiting others, arrests his 
earthly activity. 

But to him who is intrusted with judicial authority, and worthy 
to administer it, there opens a sphere of actual service and benefit 
to his fellow men, as limitless as the vistas of the infinite future. He 
speaks not alone to the living who are before him ; he writes his 
decrees not merely that the suitors in his presence may know the 
determination of their particular causes ; so far as the wide do- 
minion of the common law now extends, or may through the coming 
centuries expand, wherever the principles of justice, upon which that 
splendid system of jurisprudence are founded, shall control the 
minds of men, there, for all time, will the thought of this wise and 
just judge live always. Safeguarded within the temple of justice, the 
silent volumes in which are recorded the evidences of his profound 
learning, his ceaseless searching after the truth, his enunciation of 
the eternal law, shall speak with an ever-living and commanding 
voice to all who shall turn to them for the inspiration that springs 
from the spirit of truth. 

The coming generations may not see the dignified yet gracious 
presence of our lamented Chief Justice, nor hear again the earnest 
accents of his voice ; but the character of the man himself, sympa- 
thetic with all suffering or misfortune, but stern and inexorable in 
his denunciation of deceit or wrong, will stand revealed, distinct and 
unchangeable, as long as mankind shall hold in respect and honor 
that which is just and righteous. 

I shall not assume to measure or define by any inadequate analysis 
those higher intellectual qualities that made him worthy to sit in the 
seats of the mighty. Upon this theme, demanding the exercise of 



ADDRESS OF HERBERT PARKER. 19 

the best faculties of reason and judgment, others to-day most fitly 
and justly speak. 

I had not the happiness to know the late Chief Justice from any in- 
timate personal acquaintance, but even as I knew him I realized how 
charming, interesting, and instructive he must have been in social in- 
tercourse, when the severe duties of his days were laid aside, and he 
could relax mind and body in the sunshine of domestic and social 
freedom. 

We all must have remarked that, even in the gravest consideration 
of an abstract question of law, he not infrequently revealed moment- 
ary flashes of shrewdest humor, — often one of the most efficient 
tests by which to determine the real value of argument or proposition. 
I cannot refrain from expression of my gratitude and appreciation 
for his great kindness of heart. My first impression of him was in 
a degree awe-inspiring; and when first I addressed the court, sitting 
in banc, it was not without a sense of real terror. Doubtless His 
Honor saw and knew this. There beamed from his kindly eyes most 
comforting encouragement, in which I forgot all fear ; by considerate 
and courteous manner, by inquiries put to me, as if I were able to 
give him instruction, he elucidated the real merit of my cause, it be- 
came clear and intelligible, not by reason of my presentation, but by 
virtue of the blaze of light his investigation threw upon it. 

He possessed that rare quality of mind and character that de- 
veloped the best powers of those who came within his influence. 
That which was false or evil shrank in cringing confusion before 
him ; but the cause that was worthy, however unskilfully presented, 
by the touch of his infallible analysis became plain and invincible, 
as under the hand of the genius of the great sculptor the figure and 
features of the spirit of truth rise in beauty and dignity from the 
formless marble. 

His judgment has fixed and defined the channels through which 
the mighty currents of the industrial and commercial interests of your 
metropolitan life shall flow. I come to you from beyond the west- 
ern hills that bound your horizon ; but there is there no rural fire- 
side, no homestead, but is the more serene and secure through 
the safeguards with which his decrees have surrounded them. No 



20 ADDRESS OF CHARLES T. GALLAGHER. 

cause was ever too great, too far reaching, or too complex to escape 
the complete grasp of his intellect ; no cause was ever so humble that 
it failed of his most exhausted, patient, and conscientious inquiry and 
judgment. 

Gratefully I pay this inadequate tribute to the exalted memories, 
the high standards of public service, character, and virtue he has 
left to us. 



ADDRESS OF CHARLES T. GALLAGHER, ESQ. 

Mr. President and Brethren of the Bar : 

I was climbing the old stone staircase of the old stone Court House 
in Court Square, on a sultry summer afternoon twenty-five years or 
more ago, in company with a fellow-student a year my senior in his 
law books, when we heard what was unusual at that time of the day 
and year, apparently a trial in progress in the old Municipal Court 
room in the second story of the building; after stopping to listen at 
the cloth-covered half-door we entered to hear what was in progress. 
Seated within the mahogany circle of what formed the bar of the 
court was the late William G. Russell on one side, and the late 
George A. Somerby on the other ; between them, with his hands in 
his pockets, addressing the court, was a lawyer whose clear-cut 
presentation of his case so won my admiration that I showed my 
interest and delight. I naturally inquired of my companion who it 
was, and he said : "Don't you know? That is Walbridge A. Field, 
the brightest scholar that has graduated from Dartmouth College 
since the days of Rufus Choate ; been Assistant Attorney General 
of the United States under Judge Hoar ; he is a scholarly fellow, he 's 
got a mind as keen as a brier." It was a rude but comprehensive 
description, and as a law student I was held attentive by the clean- 
cut, logical style of Mr. Field's forceful argument, and was impressed 
with the scholarly bearing and dignity of the man. 

A few weeks after, the same summer, I was sent from the office 
where I was a student, with some form of communication, to the 
office of Jewell, Gaston, and Field. It was my first visit to that 



ADDRESS OF CHARLES T. GALLAGHER. 21 

office, and I approached it, as students did the offices of other princi- 
pals in those days, with some feeling of trepidation. Unaware, as 
the new student was, what strained relations might exist between 
another office and his own, it was not infrequent that he might be 
received into the atmosphere of an office already charged with the 
vibrations of legal battles still in progress, the spirit of which in 
some cases was imparted even to visiting students. Time and 
manners have improved in the short years since then. While in 
these days the bar endeavor " to try causes," in those days the 
apparent desire was " to fight lawsuits." As I entered the office I 
forbore to interrupt Mr. Field, who was seated back to the door 
busily engaged in reading. When I did speak to him, however, I 
found, as he laid aside his book, that I had merely interrupted the 
perusal of one of Dickens' works, and was impressed at once with 
the fact that I was in the presence of a large-hearted, broad-minded 
man, one who was possessed of a love for his kind ; and his courtesy 
and affable treatment of me at that time bore out to the full the 
impression I had just received and the opinion I had formed. His 
manner was gracious and considerate, and I went away feeling that 
no matter what were the strife, such a man must indeed be a friend 
to every young man. Twenty-five years' experience with him in 
public life and at the bar, and before him on the bench, have crys- 
tallized and strengthened to a superior degree the opinion that I 
then formed. 

I mention these two incidents as illustrations of the two phases 
of Judge Field's character which impressed me so early in my 
studies, and which have been enlarged and strengthened during 
twenty-five years' acquaintance with him, — his ability and learning, 
coupled with a kindly nature. 

Later in life, after he had been called by the Republicans of his 
district to contest for a seat in Congress, it was my good fortune to 
be one of the committee who met him frequently during his cam- 
paign, and was again impressed with the high character and stand 
that he took in public matters. I felt proud to be associated with 
the young men who were interested in his canvass ; they were none 
of them political " workers," but men of the finest type of character, 



22 ADDRESS OF CHARLES T, GALLAGHER. 

and Judge Field's personality was such that he drew men of that 
character about him. He would allow his campaign to be con- 
ducted only on the highest plane, and it is a tribute to his sterling 
character and high moral worth that young men were found in such 
numbers to devote their time from busy lives to the advancement of 
what he professed on public questions. The campaign closed with 
Mr. Field winning the admiration of every man who had met him in 
his canvass. 

As to the high character and standing of Chief Justice Field in 
public life or while at the bar and on the bench, so much has already 
been said by those who were his associates and personal friends, that 
anything a person of my years should say thus late in the proceed- 
ings would be anti-climax. I want to pay my tribute to his kindly 
personality, and I come, as a younger member of the bar, in response 
to the invitation of your committee, to place my humble chaplet on 
his grave, and add my word of appreciation for and devotion to one 
whose kindness, patience, and unfailing courtesy won for him the 
love and affection of all those whose good fortune it was to know 
him. 



SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF THE 
COMMONWEALTH. 

The meeting of the bar was followed by the recognition 
of the proceedings by the full bench of the Supreme Court. 
The tap of the court officer's gavel brought every one in 
the court room to his feet, and through the door leading 
from the lobby the justices of the Superior Court entered, 
followed by Chief Justice Holmes and Judges Morton, 
Lathrop, Hammond, and Loring, the latter five occupying 
the bench. 

Court Officer Murray heralded the opening of court, and 
after every one had become seated Attorney General Knowl- 
ton addressed the full bench. 

ADDRESS OF ATTORNEY GENERAL KNOWLTON. 

Your Honors: I am charged by my associates with a solemn, 
yet grateful, duty. Walbridge Abner Field, a justice of this court 
for eighteen years, and for nine years its chief, died at his home in 
Boston on the fifteenth day of July last. The bar of the Common- 
wealth have embodied in formal resolutions an expression of their 
esteem for him, and their respect for his memory. I am commis- 
sioned to present those resolutions to the court, and to request that 
they be entered on record, to the end that those who come after us 
may know something of the regard we had for our departed chief. 

I cannot expect to add to or improve upon the resolutions which I 
have the honor to present to the court ; but I should be unjust to my 
sense of gratitude if I did not avail myself of this opportunity to pay 
my own tribute to the memory of one to whom in common with my 



24 ADDRESS OF ATTORNEY GENERAL KNOWLTON. 

associates I feel I owe so much. Chief Justice Field has been a 
prominent figure upon this bench for nearly a generation. The period 
of his service comprises the most important part of the professional 
life of those who are now in active practice. I intend no disparage- 
ment of those who shall take up his work in saying that to this gen- 
eration of lawyers, to whom his gracious presence has been so long 
familiar, the unique place he occupied in our affections will never 
again be quite filled. In recent years my official relations with him 
have necessarily been of so intimate a character that whether I speak 
of him with full knowledge of his worth or not, I know, at least, that 
I speak from a full heart. 

The life story of Chief Justice Field makes it plain that the high 
station he attained was the result of no accident. Every step seemed 
to lead directly towards the goal he reached. As a boy, even, he 
displayed that fondness for literary studies and that capacity for 
literary work which, next to health, at least, are the first essentials 
of success in our difficult profession. At college he was distinguished 
for his scholarship. But two other men, it is said, ever equalled the 
mark he attained ; and one of those was Rufus Choate. 

He graduated from college in 1855, and was admitted to the bar 
in Boston in 1860, being then twenty-seven years of age. He was 
fortunate in having been privileged to pursue his studies in an office 
of high rank and established reputation, where he remained after his 
admission, becoming a member of the firm ; and (except when called 
away in the performance of public duties) continued his connection 
with the firm until he was elevated to the bench. 

Once only, and for a brief time, he turned aside from the law. 
But his career in politics, though brief, was characteristic and credit- 
able. In 1876 he was selected to represent his party in a close district 
as a candidate for Congress. He was declared elected. But his seat 
was contested ; and after a memorable contest he was unseated, only 
to stand again as a candidate, and to vindicate his right to the seat 
by a second election, which could not be questioned. 

During this contest he was offered by the governor a position upon 
the bench ; but with characteristic devotion to what he deemed to be 
his duty to his supporters, he declined the offer. If he had yielded 



ADDRESS OF ATTORNEY GENERAL KNOWLTON. 25 

to what must have been to him a strong temptation, especially as his 
political future seemed at the time almost hopeless, we should have 
had five years more of his services on this bench, but we should not 
have had a most convincing proof of the strength of his manhood 
and of his devotion to duty. 

After one full term in the House of Representatives he resumed 
the work of his profession, enriched and educated, no doubt, by what 
he had learned in that greatest of schools of human experience, but 
glad to return to the career destiny had marked out for him. Again 
the call to judicial service came to him, and in 1881, at the age of 
forty-eight, he began that great work upon the bench of the Supreme 
Judicial Court, for which he was so well fitted by training and 
natural temperament. 

What an ideal judge he was ! "With what natural dignity, and yet 
graciousness, he administered the duties of that high and responsible 
office ! Your Honors, who sat by his side, can scarcely appreciate 
the unbounded confidence the bar felt in his absolute sense of 
impartial justice and the satisfaction they entertained in his appre- 
ciation of their efforts. Even the nervous and timid beginner was 
soon inspired with confidence by his sympathetic courtesy. He was 
a good listener. No advocate left his presence without feeling that 
he had had the fullest opportunity to present his client's cause. 

The value of oral arguments is sometimes questioned ; and there 
are those who hold that if the brief be well prepared, it is sufficient. 
Chief Justice Field had no such views. He believed that no medium 
of communicating ideas from mind to mind can ever quite take the 
place of the magnetism of the human voice ; and no man who had 
anything to say that was worth hearing ever failed to find in Chief 
Justice Field an attentive, a responsive, and a critical listener. One 
peculiarity of his is worth noting. Many a lawyer I have known to 
come away from argument feeling sure that the Chief Justice was 
with him, because he had sharply questioned the counsel upon the 
other side. He had not learned that though the Chief Justice fre- 
quently interrupted with questions (one of the most valuable features, 
in my judgment, of the oral argument), his questions were seldom 
put for the purpose of confounding the advocate whom he believed 

4 



26 ADDRESS OF ATTORNEY GENERAL KNOWLTON. 

to be wrong, but rather to test the truth of what impressed him as 
the correct view. 

A characteristic of the Chief Justice which has always profoundly 
impressed me I do not find to be referred to specifically in the resolu- 
tions of the bar. He never seemed to me to grow old. Though he 
was nearing the end of the ten years that follow the threescore, I do 
not recall that he presented in his personal appearance any of the 
usual indications of advancing years. The latter part of his life was 
a struggle with persistent disease ; but I believe his mind never 
grew old, and I am sure his heart was young to the day of his death. 
No nipping frost had chilled the impulses of his youth ; no darkness 
of declining day had obscured the vigor of his mind. To the ripe 
maturity of manhood he added a freshness of appreciation, a gen- 
uineness of sympathy with the activities, mental and material, of 
human life, a sensitiveness to the newest thought of the world that 
is the eternal characteristic of youth. It was to me the most lovable 
trait of his character. At a time of life when many are content to 
sit by the wayside and see the restless procession of human life go 
on before them, he was still joining in the march of the ages, keep- 
ing step to the drumbeat of the newer civilization. 

Far be it from me to deny the veneration that is due to the wisdom 
of age, or to disparage its dignity, its nobility, its beauty, even. But 
I have come to learn that all the progress of this human race has 
been achieved by those in whose hearts the deep wellsprings of youth 
have not become dry. It is they only to whose clear vision is given 
to see the coming of the bright morrow that shall outshine the glory 
even of to-day. It is the divine courage of youth that dares to go 
forward. In saying this, however, I do not speak of youth as a 
matter of years, but of temperament. Those whose hearts still beat 
in unison with the great impulses of humanity in its reaching out 
for that which is beyond and above are still young, though their 
locks are tinged with frost and their bodies withered by disease. It 
was this heart of youth that continued warm in the bosom of our 
beloved Chief Justice till it ceased to beat forever. 

I dwell upon this aspect of his character because herein do I find 
the key to his success as a judge. That his career was successful 



ADDRESS OF ATTORNEY GENERAL KHOWLTOH. 27 

in the highest sense of the word cannot be que- He was 

a great judge, not because of a t ring intellect that si 

ire his -• .-. :. a : . - 

-. • pinions, not y re -on of special id I in any . anch 

of the la- : h \ : ^use of the - the 

impnk - : I fejr, and beea - .- . f his abl 

and to keep the law in ~:ach, -with the advance 

heir I i: = iii :: lira './ :'...-.- :ea: - ; - - . 

tl : lis . iea :f tl : . . : - . • . ; 

to lay down a set of a priori rules, 1 to 

case by itself, and k ascertain ^-hat justice to 1 it 

required, without special regard to what might be the effect upon 
. -....:• - ; ii :.' 

aal I aaa sill, less ;are that i: — tall '.e 1 -:.:e general t~.h .: ;aii- 
;ial ::t: .. : :t in tie sense flat :'ic:-: .7 tie . 
in closer touch with the ethical sense of the humanity of to-c s 
mial: -5-ell 1.-' . '. :en trae :: . . .: tie :era; a: .: '. .. .: 

It is = ... rimes sail t: . . . / : : .'_ rlat tie ia~ is raerelj a 

1. :: : . . . . i ..a-. 1 - . . :.. .-: :n> in tie sense :1a: i: ■ - :n 

... . : tie : . . ; VT e — 1 : se 1 = ar e al ~e a : i: 
kaa:~ tlat tlis is a:t s-: It zaij : sail t: e tie tiler iarj :f tie 
'car a: is: :.::.. a ~lt: las . ... '. . . " . i : . : -.- ! . -. z . i - . = • 
the law it ascertained to the ease in hand; alihoudi I do not so 



28 ADDRESS OF ATTORNEY GENERAL KNOWLTON. 

He was sensitive, no man more so, to the good opinion of his 
fellow men, and especially of the bar. He was solicitous to so per- 
form his work that it should be said of him that he was impartial, 
just, and progressive. How well the bar remember his quick, rest- 
less glance about the court room, seeking for sympathy and approval 
in his rulings. I believe he felt that he enjoyed the confidence of 
the bar, and in that thought found his highest joy. His last days 
were clouded by pain and sickness, but we may well believe his great 
heart was ever cheered and sustained by the belief that his place in 
the affections of his associates was secure ; that he was appreciated 
as he knew he deserved by those he served ; and that when the last 
words came to be said they would be those sweetest of all words to 
the soldier putting off his armor : " Well done, good and faithful 
servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 

I ask that the resolutions be accepted and made a part of the 
records of the court. 

The Attorney General then presented the following resolutions : 

Resolved, That the death of Walbridge Abner Field, lately Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, has removed from a high 
place of usefulness, dignity, and honor a faithful public servant who 
was stricken down in the maturity of his splendid powers. 

He was a man of commanding presence. To great natural 
abilities were joined cultivation, refinement, and wide experience. 
Appointed to the bench in his forty-eighth year, by his masterly 
scholarship during his college course, by his services as tutor at 
Dartmouth College, as Assistant District Attorney and Assistant 
Attorney General of the United States, and as a member of Con- 
gress, he had already won confidence and distinction, so that his 
original appointment and subsequent promotion, resting upon 
acknowledged fitness, met the cordial approval of the bar of the 
Commonwealth. 

His instincts and habits were scholarly. His reading was wide 
and his knowledge deep and thorough. His learning was accu- 
rate. Quick of comprehension, he was deliberate in judgment. His 
mental equipment was mathematical and practical rather than meta- 



ADDRESS OF ATTORNEY GENERAL KNOWLTON. 29 

physical and theoretical. He dealt with the concrete rather than 
the abstract. No subject of human knowledge was too great for his 
comprehension, no distinction too small to escape his attention. 
Untiringly diligent, his retentive memory preserved the fruits of 
a wise industry. His mind was well ordered. It was too well 
balanced for exaggeration. Open and candid in all his methods, 
he was quick to detect any subtlety. For him sophistry had no 
attraction. 

He had in a remarkable degree that indispensable attribute of a 
great judge, common sense, which has been aptly defined by one of 
his predecessors in his great office as "an instinctive knowledge 
of the true relation of things." He was just to parties ; patient 
and courteous to counsel. He never lost the respect or confidence 
of litigants. Mentally impatient of prolixity, it found no physical 
manifestation. Not punctilious, he yet had an inherited sense of 
propriety that gave a native dignity to his acts and words. He 
found his recreation in books. He was undemonstrative but sin- 
cere. In his friendships he was warm and constant. His fund of 
anecdote, information, and experience lent a peculiar charm and 
grace to his conversation. Lineally descended, in the seventh gen- 
eration, from Roger Williams, the first teacher of toleration among 
the Puritans, he was tolerant of the opinions of others. With him 
discussion was not controversy. In his written opinions, his rea- 
soning is logical, and his style direct and incisive. They are his 
enduring monuments. His keen sense of humor was ever subor- 
dinate to the gravity of the judicial office. 

Ample, ready, and well digested learning, common sense, logical 
power, accuracy of perception, discriminating analysis, skill to apply 
old principles to new cases, impartiality, charity, patience, moderation, 
industry, courtesy, integrity, and public spirit have ever characterized 
our judiciary, but Chief Justice Field had all these qualities with 
manly modesty, sweetness of temper, pure mindedness, gentleness 
of heart and beauty of character, in rare and perfect combination. 
Under his administration the court has lost none of its prestige. He 
was a good citizen, loving his adopted State and city. In office and in 
private life he was faitliful in all things. In his death the Common- 



30 RESPONSE OF CHIEF JUSTICE HOLMES. 

wealth has suffered a great loss, and the bar has lost a Chief Justice 
of whom it was justly proud. 

Resolved, That the Attorney General be desired to present these 
resolutions to the Supreme Judicial Court with a request that they 
be entered upon its records as a testimonial of honor and affection, 
and that the secretary transmit a copy thereof to the family of the 
deceased Chief Justice with the assurance of the sincere sympathy 
of the bar. 



RESPONSE OF CHIEF JUSTICE HOLMES. 

Gentlemen of the Bar: It is not easy to speak for the bench 
upon an event like that for which we meet. We judges are brought 
together so closely, I sat by the side of the late Chief Justice so long 
— it was nearly seventeen years — that separation has in it some- 
thing too intimate for speech. Long association makes friendship, 
as it makes property and belief, a part of our being. When it is 
wrenched from us, roots are torn and broken that bleed like veins. 
Nevertheless we must not be silent when we are called to honor 
the memory of a remarkable man although he was a brother. We 
must sink the private in the public loss. 

Chief Justice Field was remarkable and was remarked from a very 
early age. His extraordinary reputation in his college was a prophecy 
of his later career. It may happen that a man is first scholar in his 
class, or whatever may be the modern equivalent of that now vanished 
distinction, solely by memory, powers of acquisition, and a certain 
docility of mind that too readily submits to direction and leadership. 
It may be, although I doubt it, that the chances are that some one 
in the field will outrun the favorite in the long race. It sometimes 
occurs that young men discount their future and exhaust their life in 
what, after all, is only preparation and not an end. But the presence 
of one great faculty does not argue the absence of others. The chances 
are that a man who leads in college will be a leader in after life. 
The chances are that the powers which carry a man to the front upon 
the prepared track will be accompanied by what is needed to give him 



RESPONSE OF CHIEF JUSTICE HOLMES. 31 

at least an honorable place in the great gallop across the world. The 
usual happened with Chief Justice Field. He was always an impor- 
tant man, at the bar as well as later on the bench. It is a pleasure 
to me to remember that the first case which I ever had of my own 
was tried in the Superior Court before Judge Lord, whom afterwards 
I succeeded on this bench, and was argued before this court on the 
other side by Mr. Field. It is a pleasure to remember kind words 
and pleasant relations at that time. But of course those recollections 
are more or less swamped in those of a long intercourse here. 

His mind was a very peculiar one. In the earlier days of my 
listening to him in consultation he seemed to me to think aloud, 
perhaps too much so, and to be unable to pass without mention the 
side suggestions which pressed in upon him in exuberant abundance. 
This very abundance made his work much harder to him. It was 
hard for him to neglect the possibilities of a side alley, however likely 
it might be to turn out a cul de sac. He wanted to know where it led 
before he passed it by. If we had eternity ahead this would be right 
and even necessary. But as life has but a short number of working 
hours, we have to choose at our peril ; we have to act on the presump- 
tions afforded by our present knowledge as to what paths are most 
likely to lead to desired goals. If we investigate Mohammedanism, 
or Spiritualism, or whether Bacon wrote Shakespeare, we have so 
much less time for philosophy, or church, or literature at large. So 
in deciding a question of law, one has to consider this element of time. 
One has to try to strike the jugular and let the rest go. I think that 
the Chief Justice did a vast deal of work which never appeared, in 
thus satisfying his conscience and in his unwillingness to risk leaving 
something out. You see the same characteristic in the statements of 
fact in his judgments. There is an elaborateness of detail about 
them which illustrates the tendency of his mind. If this exuberance 
was a fault, it was diminished as time went on. Without abating his 
care he gradually learned to omit. 

Outside the law his fertility of mind made him a most interest- 
ing and delightful companion. He talked little about people, and 
never maliciously, but in the field of general ideas he roamed with 
freedom. He was discursive, humorous, sceptical by temperament, 



32 RESPONSE OF CHIEF JUSTICE HOLMES. 

yet having convictions which gave steadiness to his thought. He 
had an extraordinary gift of repartee, and I used to delight in giving 
him opportunities to exercise it at my expense, for his answers were 
sure to be amusing and they never stung. No man ever had less 
bitterness in his nature. No man ever had a sweeter temper. I do 
not know how much it may have cost him to attain it, but it really 
was enough to bring tears to one's eyes to see how imperturbable 
he was in his amiability, no matter what grounds he might have 
for just irritation, no matter how much he might be suffering from 
fatigue and pain. His alleviating humor and his wit shone not 
merely in the consultation room, but elsewhere. I never have heard 
better after-dinner speeches than those which he would turn off with 
little or no preparation. 

I have said that, although of sceptical temperament, he had con- 
victions. The fact led to a curious result in his way of regarding 
the authority of decided cases. I am not sure how he would have 
expressed it, or indeed whether the notion was articulate in his mind, 
but he seemed to me to conceive of the law as ideally, at least, em- 
bodying absolute right. If a case appeared to him to run against 
some general principle which he thought was or ought to be a part 
of the law, the fact that it was decided seemed to make but little im- 
pression on his mind. He did not hesitate to throw doubt upon it 
or to disregard it. I do not think that he would have been content 
to regard the law as an empirical product of history, the particular 
forms of which are venerable mainly because they are — because in 
fact these and not something else which would seem to be as good 
or better if only the world were accustomed to it, are what our part 
of the world has come out on. Perhaps it was the same point of 
view that made him more ready than some judges to hold rather a 
tight rein upon the actual practices of the community. If a contract 
struck him as aiming at a gambling result, he would not enforce it, 
however much his refusal might encounter the daily practice of a 
whole board of brokers. He had his views of policy, and he did not 
doubt that the law agreed with him. 

It was part of the same general habit of mind that he should be free 
to the point of innovation in applying convenient analogies to new 



RESPONSE OF CHIEF JUSTICE HOLMES. 33 

cases. He sometimes seemed to me to go not only beyond but against 
tradition in his wish to render more perfect justice. He was less 
interested in the embryology of the law as an object of abstract specu- 
lation, or in the logical outcome of precedent, than he was in making 
sure that every interest should be represented before the court, and 
in extending useful remedies — a good fault, if it be a fault at all. 
He had an accomplished knowledge of the present state of the law, 
and a good deal of curious and useful information about our local 
history, for which I have envied him often. I doubt if any lawyer 
whom I have known, except his honored predecessor, from whom we 
still learn upon another bench, was his equal in this regard. 

The personal characteristics which I have mentioned went no 
further than to mark a person. They were no more than what every 
strong man has and must have. They were governed by excellent 
sense, moderation, and insight. He sometimes was so possessed by 
an idea, or special aspect of a case, as to be for a time inaccessible to 
suggestion until the fire had burned itself out; but in a little while, 
in two or three days if not the same day, he fully grasped and did 
justice to the other view. As a rule he was very quick and took an 
idea in a flash. 

Men carry their signatures upon their persons, although they may 
not always be visible at the first glance. If you had looked casually 
at the Chief Justice you might not have seen more than a strong 
man like others. But to a more attentive watch there came out 
a high intellectual radiance that was all his own. I have caught 
myself over and over again staring with delight upon his profile 
as I sat beside him, and admiring the fine keenness of his thought- 
absorbed gaze. 

He had the heroic temper. This is the last, the greatest, thing that 
I can say. I used to notice, even in little matters, that he always 
looked his own conduct in the face and did not equivocate, apologize, 
or disguise. I could not notice, because it was too hidden, but I 
know, that he did his work in the same great way. It is hard to realize 
or believe what sufferings he went through long before the end. But 
if he had walked the floor all night in poignant pain, when he appeared 
in the morning he gave no sign of it unless it may be by silence. He 

5 



34 RESPONSE OF CHIEF JUSTICE HOLMES. 

took his work hard, as I have intimated, but he never said so, and he 
went down fighting, like a brave man as he was. 

Gentlemen, for all of us this is a solemn moment. For me it is 
almost oppressively solemn. It would be serious enough were I only 
to remember the line of great, gifted, and good men whose place I 
have been called on to fill. But it is sadly, yes, awfully solemn, when 
I remember that with our beloved chief vanishes the last of those 
who were upon the bench when I took my seat, and so realize the 
swift, monotonous iteration of death. We sometimes wonder at the 
interest of mankind in platitudes. It is because truths realized are 
truths rediscovered, and each of us with advancing years realizes in 
his own experience what he always has admitted but never before has 
felt. The careless boy admits that life is short, but he feels that a term 
in college, a summer vacation, a day, is long. We gray-haired men 
hear in our ears the roar of the cataract, and know that we are very 
near. The cry of personal anguish is almost drowned by the resound- 
ing echo of universal fate. It has become easier for us to imagine 
even the time when the cataract will be still, the race of men will be 
no more, and the great silence shall be supreme. What then may be 
the value of our judgments of significance and worth I know not. 
But I do firmly believe that if those judgments are not, as they may 
be, themselves the flammantia moenia mundi, the bounds and govern- 
ance of all being, it is only because they are swallowed up and dis- 
solved in something unimaginable and greater out of which they 
emerged. Our last word about the unfathomable universe must be in 
terms of thought. If we believe that anything is, we must believe in 
that, because we can go no further. We may accept its canons even 
while we admit that we do not know that we know the truth of truth. 
Accepting them, we accept our destiny to work, to fight, to die for 
ideal aims. At the grave of a hero who has done these things we 
end not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of 
his courage ; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the 
fight. 

The resolutions of the bar will be placed upon the records of the 
court. 

The court will now adjourn. 



RESOLUTIONS OF THE ALUMNI OF DARTMOUTH 

COLLEGE. 

At a meeting of the Alumni of Dartmouth College the 
following resolutions were presented by Hon. James B. Rich- 
ardson, Associate Justice of the Superior Court : 

Though eulogiums upon the late Chief Justice Field for his distin- 
guished public service as jurist and magistrate have been pronounced, 
and the general esteem and respect in which he was held have been 
eloquently stated, yet it seems fitting for us in this association — of 
which he was for nearly forty years an active member, and for six 
years president — to gratefully acknowledge the obligation of the 
association to him, and to express our love for him, and our great 
sorrow for his death. It has been the happy lot of but few men to 
have been given, in such felicitous union, so many very great qualities 
with so many lovable and charming traits of person in the affairs of 
friendship and friend-life, as were possessed by our late brother. 

To splendid natural intellectual power, cultivated with untiring 
industry, improved by great learning, and adorned by brilliant 
scholarship, were joined a fine moral sense, generous sentiments, 
kindness of heart, and all those qualities which give to friendship 
and society their enjoyment and charm. 

He was absolutely truthful, he had perfect integrity, a vigorous 
sense and love of justice which secured and held the confidence of 
men in his great office, and withal a sweetness of temper, an innate 
kindness, a regard for others, and a gentleness which won the affec- 
tions of those who had the happiness to know him more intimately; 
and over all, illuminating all, was the radiance of an absolutely pure 
personal moral character. 

The memory of Walbridge Abner Field, to us and to the College 
whose glory he much increased, will ever be a most valuable and 
cherished possession. 



36 RESOLUTIONS. 



RESOLUTIONS OF THE VERMONT ASSOCIATION. 

At a meeting- of the Vermont Association resolutions were 
read by Judge Edgar J. Sherman, and contained the follow- 
ing passage : 

That he was a great, learned, upright, and conscientious judge ; that 
he had brilliant scholarship; that he occupied many places of trust, 
confidence, and honor, and was conspicuously faithful in them all ; that 
his title to greatness and fame is undisputed and secure, — need not 
be restated here. We rather desire to express, if we adequately can, 
our esteem, admiration, and love for him; his personal character, his 
pure and upright life, and his lovable personal qualities which espe- 
cially endeared him to us. The name of Walbridge A. Field will 
remain in our remembrance as fresh and perennial and as grateful as 
to our sight is the summer verdure of the hills of his native State. 



RESOLUTIONS OF THE CURTIS CLUB. 

Resolutions adopted by the Curtis Club, an association 
of lawyers in the city of Boston, at a meeting held on De- 
cember 15, 1899: 

In remembrance of Walbridge Abner Field, for eighteen years a 
Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court and for nine years its Chief 
Justice, and in evidence of our profound respect for his character and 
ability, 

Resolved, That, in his passing from the earth, Death deprived the 
Commonwealth of an upright, conscientious, and impartial judge, of 
great ability, absolute fidelity, in the rich maturity of his splendid 
powers, and in the golden hour of his usefulness. Equipped by nature 
and by education as few men are to perform important service to his 
fellow men, he filled the full measure of his large and varied oppor- 



RESOLUTIONS 37 

tunities with the best fruits of a life devoted to the performance of 
duty. 

Early in his practice at the bar he became eminent in his profession 
by the just exercise of those fine and sterling qualities which after- 
wards brought him distinction upon the bench, — incisive clearness, 
directness, sound judgment, hard work, abilities of a very high order, 
an instinct for law, and a thorough knowledge of legal principles. 

It was not by chance or favor that he attained his high position. 
In youth he stood at the head of his school. He was graduated at 
the head of his class in college, and the ability he displayed at the 
bar was soon recognized by his appointment as Assistant District 
Attorney, and later an Assistant Attorney General, of the United 
States. Subsequently he was chosen by the people to represent his 
district in Congress. 

He was one of those fortunate persons whose whole life seems to 
have been guided by a single purpose and a definite object from the 
beginning, and whose past contained no time or effort wasted. 

But it would be inappropriate here to attempt any extended review 
of his distinguished services to the Commonwealth and his high place 
among her eminent jurists. That has already been performed by all 
the members of the bar in their solemn and beautiful tribute to his 
memory ; but we of a generation younger than his can appreciate, 
perhaps more deeply than our seniors, the kindly and helpful manner 
in which he met us at the beginning of our practice before him, and 
how we were made to feel that we were not appearing before a stern 
and arbitrary judge, but were rather in the presence of a great legal 
friend whose only wish was to assist us in the discharge of our duties. 
From him we learned that no quality essential to an ideal judge is 
incompatible with the qualities of an ideal gentleman. 

But, devoted as he was to his profession and the delicate and im- 
portant duties of his high office, he did not walk always in their 
narrow path. He rounded well the circle of universal knowledge, 
and freely roved in every field of science and culture. Had he de- 
voted himself to other intellectual pursuits for which he had rare 
qualifications, there is every reason to believe that he would have 
attained a place no less distinguished than that he filled in the calling 



38 RESOLUTIONS 

of his choice. A just and able magistrate; a public-spirited and 
unselfish citizen ; a true man in all the relations of strength and 
tenderness ; his life sweetened and adorned by a rare modesty which 
seemed to conceal from himself the virtues and ability which were 
apparent to all other eyes, — he represented the best product of New 
England life. 

Resolved, That the Secretary cause these resolutions to be entered 
upon the records of the Curtis Club, and that he transmit a copy of 
them to the family of the deceased, with the assurance of the sincere 
sympathy of all its members. 



REMARKS BY MR. JUSTICE BARKER 

[Read at the Meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
October 12, 1899, and reprinted from its Proceedings.] 

Our late associate, apparently in the vigor of mature manhood, 
with form unbent, and in the full activity of useful service, was walk- 
ing from the court-house on the afternoon of a winter day, when a 
touch, which then could not be recognized as fatal, put an unexpected 
and untimely end to his work. With hopeful courage he struggled 
to regain his strength, refusing to believe that his labor was done and 
his life drawing near its end. Some months of alternating gain and 
loss, and the end came in the early summer. 

He was so large and strong a figure, so eminent in character, 
ability, and acquirements as well as in official station, that his death 
caused every intelligent citizen to pause, and to reflect gratefully 
upon his memory and share in the general sense of loss. 

Were it not our usual custom when death calls a member from 
our ranks, we could not fail at this time to mention the death of 
Walbridge Abner Field, and to attempt some statement of our 
appreciation of his character and life. 

He had been for many years one of the most eminent and con- 
spicuous citizens of the State. A happy quality of the Common- 
wealth is that, while giving ample opportunity to her own sons, she 
knows how to draw to herself the manly, vigorous youth of her more 
northern neighbors, and has the wisdom so to do. In mind and 
heart Judge Field was large enough and strong enough to bear a true 
allegiance, not only to the State of his birth, but to that wherein he 
received his college training as well as to that of his final adoption. 
No one can doubt that he was a broader man, more sound and 
strong, because born in Vermont, educated in New Hampshire, and 
from early manhood a citizen of Massachusetts. 

The practical administration of justice calls for the learning of 
every science, for the widest knowledge of affairs, and the deepest 



40 REMARKS BY MR. JUSTICE BARKER 

and clearest insight into human nature. These come by observation 
acting through wide experiences, by close study of books, of things, 
and of men carefully made by a mind well disciplined and capable 
of deep and logical reflection and reasoning. Add to them the grace 
which comes from a familiar acquaintance with the best literature, 
and the cultivation resulting from attrition with bright minds in 
various walks of life, add also the technical knowledge of the law 
and of its history, noble impulses and ambitions, firmness and sta- 
bility, and the power for assiduous, arduous work, and he who has 
these gifts and accomplishments has many of the qualities necessary 
in a great jurist. 

As these qualities are mentioned, each of you recognizes that 
Judge Field had them in a high degree. His active mind, besides 
mastering the special learning of the law, ran through other depart- 
ments of knowledge as a searching wind. His retentive memory and 
his power of assimilation placed at his command very much of all 
that he had seen or learned from books or men. 

His opportunities, mostly self-made, had been large. Boyhood 
taught him all the life and thought of the old New England town, 
where every man and woman had a distinct character, worthy of 
study. Many of his qualities were intensified, and many of his 
habits of life and thought were the result of rural birth and breed- 
ing. Self-reliance, respect for the plain discharge of homely duty, 
interest in all things and all men outside of the narrow circle which 
at first bounds the vision of the country boy, love of nature and ap- 
preciation of her moods, the habits of observation and of thought, 
and the ambition to render great service rather than to seek amuse- 
ment, notoriety, or riches, were fostered by the surroundings of his 
youth. Nothing gave him a keener interest than the study or dis- 
cussion of primitive New England life and thought. In many fine 
ways he remained a typical Vermonter, bringing with his presence 
the breezy atmosphere and the freshness of her hills and the un- 
affected natural brightness of her sunny moods. 

After the Vermont school came the New Hampshire college, and 
one could well understand that he stood at the head of his class from 
his familiarity with Greek and Latin authors, and the ease with 



REMARKS BY MR. JUSTICE BARKER 41 

which he continued to use those tongues. Rarely would a day pass 
without some expression showing a ready command of knowledge 
outside of his profession. An experience as a teacher added to his 
facility of control, but left with him no prim and arbitrary habit of 
command and no tendency to make a display of authority. He was 
slow to assert the prerogatives of office, and no man was more free 
from arrogance or any shadow of pretence. 

He early entered a firm in large practice at the bar, whose senior 
members, prominent alike in public and in professional life, tried 
as many important causes as any advocates of the day. Nor was 
Judge Field's part in the business of the firm mere office work. lie 
not infrequently tried jury cases, conducted difficult equity suits, and 
made many law arguments. Almost at the outset, a contest in the 
Federal Court with the then United States Attorney of the District, 
in which the younger lawyer won, procured for him from his adver- 
sary an offer, which he accepted, of the place of Assistant United 
States Attorney, and this opened to him the field, of national affairs. 
Before he went upon the bench, he was further fitted and ripened 
in the same direction by more than one valuable experience in the 
national capital, sitting in the Cabinet as assistant attorney-general 
and in Congress as a member of the House, and gaining thus an ac- 
quaintance with officials from all parts of the Union, and with states- 
men, as well as with modes of national action. He always took a 
lively and intelligent interest in politics ; but his political career, 
although he was yet in Congress when appointed to the bench, was 
wisely kept subordinate to his chief work. At all times the lawyer, his 
ripening and his ripened powers were devoted to the law, as worthy 
of his constant study and as the means for him of greatest influence. 

While his work at the bar constituted his most important training 
for the bench, and while it was supplemented by his experiences in 
public life and by his attention to scholarly pursuits and to the ex- 
tension of his acquaintances and friendships, there were other sides 
to his large nature. 

The venerable clergyman who so feelingly spoke at his funeral 
attested his faithfulness to that great factor in promoting the higher 
and better life of the individual and of the community, the church. 

6 



42 REMARKS BY MR. JUSTICE BARKER 

There are no more important and delicate subjects for judicial de- 
cision than those which grow out of the duties and relations spring- 
ing from the family. These he could the better understand, and 
could deal with the more wisely, because of his own fine family life 
in a home where wife aud children gave him daily greeting, inspira- 
tion, and service. 

Then, too, he had the power and the habit of displaying such a real 
and kindly interest in other men, that, instead of seeing them " as 
trees walking," he found them fellow men, and induced them to open 
up for his use whatever each had of good. 

His interest in his college continued close and warm, and he was 
enthusiastically greeted at the meetings of her sons as well as at the 
gatherings in honor of his native State. 

A little above medium height, he was so erect and had such a 
carriage and bearing as to make him seem perhaps of larger stature 
than he was. There were alertness and penetration in his look, his 
movements were light and easy, and there were grace and dignity, 
with directness, in his manner. With his outward appearance time 
dealt kindly, leaving his blond hair unblanched and showing him 
mature but retaining youthful vigor. He was temperate by habit in 
all things but work ; and he bore bodily pain, not merely with forti- 
tude, but so well that most who saw him knew not that he was 
suffering. If he concealed that almost constant incident of his later 
years, it was from no false pride ; for with absolute frankness he 
would mention any slight infirmity of his own, the existence of which 
unperceived might possibly prejudice others. 

In intellectual nature he was alert, watchful, quick, and forceful, 
somewhat imperious at times in dealing with an opposition which 
seemed to him factious or stupid and unworthy. But he had such 
real kindliness of heart, such insight, and was himself so unpretend- 
ing, simple, natural, and great, that he never failed to give to every 
man such respect as was his due. Keen of wit and very ready in re- 
partee, he was never sarcastic or cutting, but always considerate of 
the feelings as well as the rights of others. So simple, kindly, and 
unaffected was he, that children playing in his street would stop him 
in the way and get him to join their sport. 



REMARKS BY MR. JUSTICE BARKER 43 

To the quick, clear, and full perception of a complicated matter 
he joined an equal readiness in bringing to it his own large knowl- 
edge. And yet the temper of his mind was not to come to hasty or 
sudden conclusions, but first to be sure that he had brought together 
and ranked in due order all pertinent considerations. So lie listened 
well and with evident interest and pleasure, and never with the air 
of one who having made up his mind finds further talk irksome. 

While confident, as he might be rightly, in his own views, he had 
not the least pride of opinion, and implicitly and graciously would 
adopt another's view when shown that it was well founded. No 
extent of research was so great, no intensity of thought so deep, as 
to make him shrink from the labor necessary to arrive at a sound 
conclusion. 

He uniformly showed the same cheerful faithfulness in the dis- 
charge of duties comparatively trivial as in those most deeply affect- 
ing important interests. 

Never burdened with riches or unduly given to any form of 
pleasure, he walked an even way confidently, calmly, and with self- 
respect. 

Were not intense conservatism the usual outcome of wide ex- 
perience combined with great ability, it might perhaps be said that 
he was almost too conservative. He held very strongly to the view 
that the existing order should not be changed lightly. All extrava- 
gance was distasteful to him, and he had an instinctive dislike of a 
heavy verdict or a large award. Frugality was a virtue which he 
practised both in official and in private life. He drove his single 
horse and unpretentious carriage, finding in this his out-of-doors 
diversion, and keeping informed of the physical changes of the city 
and its suburbs. His modest dwelling in a section from which 
fashion had withdrawn was as simple as his life. Yet there were 
no finer instances of unaffected, dignified hospitality than the enter- 
tainments in his plain basement dining-room, to which his friends 
of whatever club or coterie or station were glad to be bidden. All 
his qualities combined to make him, upon those occasions when he 
properly could unbend and give free rein to wit and fancy, a most 
delightful host or companion. 



44 REMARKS BY MR. JUSTICE BARKER 

This man, so born and trained, so ripened and developed, with 
such high powers and great acquirements, with such true simplicity 
and dignity, served as a Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of 
Massachusetts for eighteen years, nine of them as its Chief Justice. 
These eighteen years far more than cover the average span of a judi- 
cial life, and he was in fact in length of service the senior justice of 
the higher courts. 

To note the breadth and worth and quality of his judicial work, to 
mark his place as magistrate and jurist, and to tell of the affection 
and esteem in which he was held by the bar, by his associates, and 
by all concerned in the practical administration of justice, is the 
peculiar province and privilege of another meeting, at which that 
one of your members who served longest with him on the bench and 
who has succeeded to his high office will speak the last word. 

Upon this occasion it is enough to say that neither by his char- 
acter, his work, nor his life has been made dim or cold the clear, 
life-giving light of justice. 

This society, honored by his membership, honors itself in giving 
testimony of his worth. 



MEMOIR WRITTEN FOR THE MASSACHUSETTS 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY BY JOHN NOBLE, ESQ. 

[Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society.] 

There is already upon record in the proceedings of this society 
the tender and touching tribute to the memory of Chief Justice 
Field, given at its first meeting after his death, by our associate, 
Judge Barker of the Supreme Judicial Court. So vivid and life- 
like is the presentation of the characteristics which made up that 
striking and forceful personality, and so full and discriminating and 
just the description of the man and the magistrate, that he seems 
almost brought in bodily presence before us. It is not for me, then, 
in discharging the duty assigned me, to attempt to add to a delinea- 
tion so complete and clear, but rather to give merely some brief 
account of the events of his life, with further detail of date and 
circumstance. 

Walbridge Abner Field, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial 
Court of Massachusetts, died in office on the 15th of July, 1899. 

He was born in North Springfield, in the State of Vermont, on the 
26th of April, 1833, the son of Abner and Louisa (Griswold) Field. 

His Christian name came to him somewhat curiously. Several 
weeks before his birth his mother dreamed she had a son and they 
called him Walbridge. The name was an entirely unfamiliar one, un- 
known in his long ancestry on either side. When the son was born, 
his father said, " Wife, what was the name we called him in your 
dream ? " The leading of the dream was followed, and a name was 
given, somewhat as in the biblical story, — the name mysteriously 
directed, with that of the father added. 

Both parents were of good New England stock, inheritors and 
representatives of those sturdy qualities, moral and intellectual, 
coupled with that delicacy and refinement of feeling, which go to 
make up the best of distinctive New England character. 



46 MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 

His father was a man in good circumstances, well to do for his 
time and situation, living comfortably, independently, and well. He 
had not had the advantages of what is termed a liberal education, 
but was not without a training that largely supplied its place ; a man 
naturally bright and of good parts, developed in the school of practi- 
cal life ; of sound judgment, good sense, and the courage to express 
his own opinions as well as to form them. Born in Vermont, his 
whole life was passed in his native State, then and for years the 
most homogeneous of the New England States in the character of its 
population, the unmixed New England stock and type. 

At the age of twenty-two he began a long and honorable mercan- 
tile life. Though of delicate health for much of his life, he was 
always active and influential in town affairs. He was also the first 
postmaster of North Springfield, one of the incorporators of the 
Windsor County Mutual Fire Insurance Company, of the Springfield 
Savings Bank, and of the Bank of Black River, and president of the 
latter for a number of years. In politics originally an old-fashioned 
Whig and later a Republican, he served as a member of the General 
Assembly and as a senator of Windsor County. 

He meant that his son should have to the fullest extent those 
advantages which he perhaps prized more highly from having lacked 
them himself. He gave him the best education which his opportuni- 
ties afforded, through schools and academies, finally sending him to 
college and the law school, furnishing the wherewithal in every 
stage with ready and generous liberality. He started him on his 
college course with two thousand dollars, a large sum for those days, 
determined that nothing should interfere with his progress and suc- 
cess. The son feelingly appreciated all that his father had done 
for him and fully justified the father's hopes. His college course 
completed, the son, with inborn independence and generous heart, 
— when his later circumstances allowed it, — gratefully and gra- 
ciously repaid it ; cherishing through his life an abiding remem- 
brance of the undischargeable obligation owed to his father's love 
and encouragement. 

Judge Field's mother was a woman of strong character, of 
unusual native ability, of refinement and tenderness of feeling, well 



MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 47 

educated and well read; a woman who studied and thought and 
wrote ably and gracefully. In the History of Springfield, Vermont, 
the article " History of North Springfield " was written by her when 
more than seventy-five years old. 

What she was and what she was to him can have no better proof 
than the affection, the devotion, and the veneration which he showed 
to her from his very boyhood up to the close of her long and honored 
life. The closeness and strength of the ties that bound the family 
together, and the beauty and charm of the home life there, revealed 
in many ways, are to be felt rather than told. 

A man's ancestry to a large extent is a part of himself, and it is 
always a matter of curious interest to watch the out-croppings of 
ancestral traits in the descendant, in later times and in other 
circumstances. 

Judge Field had always a deep interest and a just pride in the 
various lines of his forebears. 

On his father's side he was descended from Thomas, the nephew 
and heir of William Field, of Field's Point, the first of that name in 
Providence, Rhode Island, who lived there in 1636 and died in 1665. 
His will was dated May 30, 1665, in which, having no children, he 
made his nephew his heir. The nephew, Thomas, was in Providence 
at the date of the will, and died there August 10, 1717. He took the 
oath of allegiance in 1667. By his wife, Martha, who died some 
time after 1708, he had three children. The oldest, Thomas, was 
born about 1670, in Providence, where he died before October 21, 
1752. He married Abigail, daughter of William and Abigail Hop- 
kins. Their second son, Jeremiah, was born some time before 1706, 
and died September 8, 1768. He married Abigail, daughter of 
Richard Waterman, December 27, 1725. Their son, James, the 
fourth of a family of eight children, was born in Providence, July 
31, 1738, and died in Vermont. By his first wife, Hannah Stone, he 
had one child, Pardon, who was born in Cranston, Rhode Island, 
April 13, 1761, and who married Elizabeth Williams, a lineal de- 
scendant of Roger Williams. Their son, Abner, was the fifth of a 
family of nine children. Abner, the father of Chief Justice Field, 
was born at Chester, Vermont, November 28, 1793, and died De- 



48 MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 

cember 19, 1864. His wife was Louisa Griswold, to whom lie was 
married February 16, 1832, and Judge Field was the oldest of their 
four children. 1 

His descent from Roger Williams may be traced as follows : 

1. Roger Williams and his wife Mary. 

2. Joseph Williams, their son, born December 12, 1643 ; died August 
17, 1724. He married Lydia Olney, the daughter of Thomas, December 
17, 1669. 

3. James Williams, their son, born September 20, 1680, who married 
Elizabeth Blackmar, the daughter of James, and who died June 25, 1757. 

4. Josef Williams, their son, born October 24, 1709, who married 
Lydia, the widow of Ichabod Potter, and died July 16, 1761. 

5. Elizabeth Williams, the daughter of Joseph and Lydia, was born 
July 8, 1758, married to Pardon Field, and died at the age of 82, August 
17, 1840. Their fifth child was Abner, the father of Judge Field. 

Through his grandmother he could trace his descent from Thomas 
Olney, James Blackmar, and William Hawkins, the father of Black- 
mar's wife, Mary, and through his grandfather, Pardon, he was de- 
scended from Thomas Harris, Gregory Dexter, John Whipple, 
Thomas Angell, Thomas Barnes, Hugh Stone, and Peter Busecot, 
counting no less than twelve original Rhode Island settlers among 
his ancestors. 2 

New England, rather than any single State, claims Judge Field. 
Born in Vermont, where his early life was passed, he was educated 
mainly in New Hampshire, and his most distinguished lifework was 
done in Massachusetts. In Maine he found what went to make up the 
happiness of his domestic and home life. As on his father's side he 
was sprung from the early settlers of Rhode Island, so on his 
mother's side he goes back to the early settlers of Connecticut. 

The old Griswold family of Connecticut finds its ancestry in Sir 
Humphrey Griswold of Malvern Hall, England. The first of the 
name on this side of the water were two brothers, Edward and Mat- 

1 Genealogy of the Fields of Providence, R. I., as traced by Mrs. Harriet A. Brownell, 
mainly from records and papers in Rhode Island, and printed for private distribution 
by J. A. and R. A. Reid, Providence, 1878. 

2 The genealogy thus given above was compiled by J. 0. Austin, Esq., of Providence, 
for Judge Field. 



MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 49 

thew, who came over about 1645. Edward settled at Windsor and 
afterward moved to Killings worth. He was born in England in 1607, 
where he was married and where his children were born, except 
John, born in America August 15, 1652. John's second wife was 
Bathsheba North, who died March 19, 1736. One of the eleven 
children born of this marriage was Joseph, born September 26, 1690. 
He married Temperance Lay, December 29, 1714, and they had eight 
children. The third, John, married Mary Ward. Their son, Daniel, 
the eighth of a family of twelve children, was the father of Judge 
Field's mother. He was born at Meriden, Connecticut, December 
5, 1762, and died at Springfield, Vermont, August 4, 1836. He 
married, in January, 1786, Annah Lenthal Ames, of South Farms, 
Middletown, Connecticut, who was born February 17, 1764, and died 
June 8, 1826. Both are buried in North Springfield, Vermont. 

Here again was a large family, numbering ten ; and the youngest, 
Xouisa, was born December 5, 1807, married to Abner Field by Rev. 
Uzziah C. Burnap, February 16, 1832, and died at North Springfield 
in 1884. 

Both the grandparents of Judge Field were persons of strongly 
marked character. The grandfather, Daniel Griswold, the first one 
of the name to appear in Vermont, was a boy of fourteen at the 
death of his father, who, when along in life, enlisted under General 
Putnam at the breaking out of the Revolution, and who died from 
exposure a few weeks after the battle on Long Island. A healthy, 
sturdy boy, full of energy and youthful independence, Daniel started 
out to make his way in the world by himself, with the slender out- 
fit of a single suit of clothes, and a pair of shoes lent him by an 
older sister. At sixteen, undeterred by the fate of his father, he 
entered the army, drawing as pay ten dollars a month in silver, and 
served for nearly a year. He saw the opening there might be for 
courage and energy in the wilds of Vermont. He bought his first 
piece of land there in Springfield, August 24, 1784, — the beginning 
of those holdings which, before he died, made him one of the largest 
landowners in that region. James Chittenden came up from Con- 
necticut, cleared a part of the land and built a log house on it, where 
he lived until February, 1790. For one or two seasons Daniel 

7 



50 MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 

worked with him, bringing his provisions from Connecticut. The 
difficulties to be encountered and the privations in making this 
settlement in a new country were so many as nearly to discourage 
him. At last, doubtful of a success that would satisfy his expecta- 
tions, he was tempted to sell out and abandon the clearing. But his 
wife, whom he had married some year and a half after his purchase, 
" would n't listen to this ; she had made up her mind to go to Ver- 
mont, — and they went." Starting from Connecticut some time in 
1790, with an ox-team, after a rugged journey of ten days they 
reached the clearing and established themselves in the log house. 
The proposed settlement was an accomplished fact. In three years 
the log house gave place to a frame house, one of the substantial 
structures of the last century ; which was standing not many years 
ago, and may be to-day. In his new home he prospered. 

A thriving farmer in the early days, he became, as the town grew 
up around him, an able man of business and affairs. Always re- 
spected and influential, of integrity and good judgment almost 
proverbial, his counsel was everywhere in request, and he found him- 
self occupying all sorts of positions of honor and trust among his 
fellow men. 

In his wife he found a worthy helpmeet. She was of Connecticut 
stock, the daughter of Anthony Ames and Hannah Eels ; and a 
granddaughter of Lemuel Eels, a minister of the new-light faith, and 
Hannah North, an English lady. Her father was said to be " a 
quiet and remarkably good man," and her mother " a very religious 
woman, perhaps somewhat exacting, who carried out to the letter in 
her family the spirit of the old Connecticut blue laws." The result 
in the daughter was a woman full of life and fun, of strong character, 
proud without vanity, energetic and determined, clear sighted and 
strong willed. The picture of their home life, as it lives still in the 
memory of the older people and has been affectionately retraced by 
their descendants, is a most pleasant one, — a well ordered, busy 
household, with abundance of innocent, simple pleasures and amuse- 
ments, good cheer and comfort and happiness, hospitable and free- 
handed, with " the latch string always out, and the table always 
spread for the guest or the stranger." 



MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 51 

Such was Judge Field's ancestry, immediate and remote ; and one 
may perhaps trace in his character, with various shadings and modi- 
fications and successive developments, many of the qualities which 
marked those long and widely diverging lines. 

As a boy he was bright and full of life, eager and ambitious, turn- 
ing to account and making the most of the training he got at home 
and in the common schools. 

As he told his nephew, in after life, one day when he was some 
dozen years old he took his book into the orchard, and as he was 
studying, he determined then and there he " would be a scholar," 
adding modestly that he had fallen far short of that youthful 
purpose. 

In 1846, when thirteen years old, he went to the academy in 
Perkinsville, a little town some four miles from his home, where he 
remained for a year. The next year he was in the Springfield 
Wesleyan Seminary, at Springfield, Vermont, an institution which 
can reckon among its students at different times many men to-day 
prominent around Boston at the bar, on the bench, in the pulpit, in 
journalism, and various other callings. Here he spent three years. 

In 1850 he entered the Kimball Union Academy, at Meriden, New 
Hampshire, from which he was graduated in the summer of 1851. 
Here he at once took high rank and was the valedictorian of his class. 
One must be familiar with New England life in the country fully to 
appreciate what these rural academies were and stood for sixty years 
or more ago, and to know their influence upon education and the 
community generally. They were often the centres of the social and 
intellectual life of the vicinity. They brought together young people 
from different and frequently widely separated districts, and had the 
stimulating and liberalizing influence of miniature colleges ; perhaps 
no times were more fondly recalled in after life or were fuller of 
pleasant memories and associations for the old students than the 
years spent in them. 

In the fall of 1851 he entered Dartmouth College, a college 
which, as in Webster's day, has always been peculiarly dear to its 
graduates, one of the best types of the college of the older day, hold- 
ing to the old ways and ideas of general, liberal development and 



52 MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 

training. In this wider field he at once came into prominence as a 
scholar, taking the position which he held throughout, the leader of 
his class in scholarship. Under the college system of rating he held 
through his whole course the standing of absolute perfection, a rank 
reached by only two other men in the history of the college, — Rufus 
Choate and Professor Putnam. There is still in evidence an annual 
report made under " an Ordinance of the Trustees " " to the Parent 
or Guardian " by President Lord, August 1, 1854, giving in detail 
the record of Judge Field's junior year : not an absence, unexcused 
or excused from college, chapel and church, or recitation, and his 
"scholarship" as determined by recitation and examination, — in 
each the highest mark attainable. In college, while not especially 
prominent as a club or society man, he was popular and respected, 
with recognized qualities of leadership and influence. Among other 
instances of acting as a representative of the college on several 
occasions, he was a delegate on the student committee to the funeral 
of Daniel Webster, at Marshfield. He was not an athlete in the 
modern college sense, but was a man of athletic build and strength. 
He had a decided mechanical capacity, and while in college, or 
before, he invented a mowing machine, not unlike those of to-day, 
and contrived a successful corn-dropper. He was fond of tools, and 
took care to have good ones and to be well supplied. For a part of 
his college life he roomed in the Observatory, — somewhat lonesome 
quarters, perhaps, but it gave him a chance to study astronomy, in 
which he was much interested, and a practical knowledge of the use 
and handling of telescopes and other astronomical instruments. 

By the long vacation and from the arrangement of studies in the 
winter, peculiar opportunities were at that time given to such stu- 
dents as desired to teach a term in country schools. He availed 
himself of this, and like many other young men, not so much from 
necessity as from a desire for wider experience and to test his own 
powers, taught three winters while in college. His first school was 
in Baltimore, Vermont, a little town, described as " a terrible rough 
place in winter." It gave him ample opportunity for the purpose 
and the trial. He had several scholars older and larger than him- 
self, and he " boarded round," — one of the places being a long 



MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 53 

distance from the schoolhouse and on a road famous for its drifts, 
which meant much in Vermont. The experiment was a success. 
The next winter he taught in a little red schoolhouse not far from 
his own home, where the compensation was in keeping with the 
schoolhouse. In 1854 he taught a winter term of school in Andover, 
Massachusetts. The report of the School Committee says " the 
school lost none of its former interest but advanced steadily to a still 
higher order of excellence. The method of instruction adopted by 
Mr. Field was eminently thorough and scholarlike. He brought to 
his work a most ready and complete acquaintance with the subjects 
he was to teach, and a remarkable power of giving to his pupils by 
uttered words, by pictured illustration, and by the use of objects a 
knowledge of the lesson taught. ... It is to be regretted that a 
school so judiciously managed, so effectively and thoroughly in- 
structed, could continue but eleven weeks." With this school ended 
satisfactorily his work as a schoolmaster. 

His college vacations were spent wholly or mainly at home. One 
of his most strongly marked characteristics was the depth and ten- 
derness of his love for his kith and kin, and his abiding affection 
for his old home and all its surroundings. And these held with him 
through his whole life. He was always doing for the rest of the 
household. The sister next him and less than two years younger 
died when he was about ten. The brother and his other sister, both 
considerably younger than he, remember him as always thoughtful 
of them, adding whenever he could to their happiness, always con- 
siderate and alive to their interests. His vacations were full, not so 
much of recreation and rest for himself, as of occupation to give 
pleasure and help to the others in the old home ; and this held 
true of all his visits in his later life. 

He took especial pleasure in all work upon the land. Like old 
Thomas Fuller, he felt that " to smell to a turf of fresh earth is 
wholesome for the body." 

His attachment for the very land which his father owned for so 
many years, and a part of which had been in the possession of his 
grandfather Griswold, was almost a passion. He would never allow 
any of it to go out of the family name, or consent to the sale of a foot 



54 MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 

of the ancestral acres. It is said he once yielded in the case of a 
remote pasture, with few associations to endear it, but was relieved 
and glad when the sale fell through. 

He had a keen interest too in all that concerned the town of his 
birth, its people and its life. One of its institutions was the old- 
fashioned country lyceum, — that agency which did so much for 
the intellectual entertainment and cultivation as well as the social 
enjoyment of New England towns sixty or more years ago. In this 
in his younger days he was one of the best debaters and of the 
most active workers. He went beyond town lines. To everything 
connected with Vermont he was always alive. He never slackened 
in his love for his native State and his pride in it. 

The four years of his college life carried him to the age of twenty- 
two, and in their developing experience meant much to him. En- 
tering well equipped, well provided for, strong and energetic, full 
of enthusiasm, with his youthful purpose always before him and bent 
on its accomplishment, he made the most of his college course and 
graduated with earned and deserved honors. He was at once ap- 
pointed a tutor of Latin, Greek, and mathematics, and held this 
position through the two years 1856 and 1857. His success in that 
field was marked. There came an offer of a professorship later. 
He said little of what he did in college, but was ever ready to speak 
of what the college did for him. He was always an intense Dart- 
mouth man. The Dartmouth spirit is distinctive and alive. Loyal 
to the college, proud of her and of the list of famous names upon her 
roll, her graduates hold together like brothers by blood — or Scottish 
clansmen. Sturdy, aggressive, plucky, independent, they make and 
will make themselves felt wherever they are, whether it be on the 
bench, at the bar, in the pulpit, in medicine, in the cabinet, in 
politics, or in affairs. 

On resigning his tutorship he began the study of law in 1858, in 
the office of Harvey Jewell, then a prominent lawyer of Boston, at 
No. 20 Court Street, in the old Tudor Building, low-browed and 
sombre, which stood at the corner of Court Street and Court Square, 
hard by the Court House. A law office then, even the most famous, 
was in its equipment and with its one or two students in striking 
contrast to the offices of to-day. 



MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 55 

In 1859, September 28, he entered the Harvard Law School, then 
under the charge of its three professors, Parker, Parsons, and Wash- 
burn, with its old-fashioned courses of lectures. He left the school 
in 1860. 

In January, 1859, he took charge of the professorship of math- 
ematics at Dartmouth for the spring and summer terms. He then 
resumed his legal studies, and was admitted to the bar in Suffolk 
County May 12, 1860, and soon after in the United States Courts for 
the District of Massachusetts, and began the active practice of his 
profession with Mr. Jewell. 

In 1863 came one of those trying occasions which sometimes come 
in a young man's life, when his decision at the parting of the ways 
means much to him. It sometimes means much to the world. It 
was the proposal to make him professor of mathematics in his Alma 
Mater. His decision and the grounds for it appear in a letter to his 
friend Professor Patterson, declining to be considered a candidate, 
and are so characteristic that some extracts from the letter are here 
given. 

" And so the whole question with me is, ' Do I desire to abandon the 
law and become a professor of mathematics in Dartmouth College,' . . . 
Sucli a professorship has to me a great many attractions. I like 
mathematical studies and teaching; the position confers consider- 
able solid respectability and honor, more than any other I can obtain, 
and the salary is quite sufficient for my wants. If my character, 
conduct, and scholarship should prove reasonably acceptable, I see 
that I could soon have a house, a wife, good social position, and some 
leisure, with desirable opportunities for study. These things are not 
certain, but probable. I might perhaps stipulate for six months or a 
year to go to Europe in, and then should become (D. V.) one of the 
better class of citizens of New Hampshire. In the law, few of these 
things are now to me reasonably certain ; if attained at all, they lie 
many years ahead, and the chances are perhaps against my ever 
attaining them. I do not altogether like the practice of the law, and 
have a distinct knowledge of the kind and amount of drudgery I must 
bear in it. Yet the position of a good lawyer in large practice in this 
city is an enviable one, and even an humbler place than that in the 



56 MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 

profession has many consolations. I do not wish to take counsel 
immoderately of my hopes or my fears. I have carefully considered 
whether on the whole I desire to abandon law for even a professor- 
ship of mathematics, and have made up my mind that I will take the 
risks of the law. I may repent it to-morrow, but I sing the law 
to-night. I am resolved to go on in it, and when I have lost heart 
and hope, I will write you frankly and ask for what I want in place 
of it." 

Later he was also offered a professorship in Washington University, 
St. Louis, which he declined. 

He advanced rapidly in his profession, and also found time to take 
some part creditably in politics and city affairs. He was a member 
of the School Committee in 1863 and 18G4. There were then on the 
board Rev. Drs. Lothrop, Gannett, Burroughs, and Coolidge, Drs. 
Homans, Hayward, Shurtleff, Coale, LeBaron Russell, and A. A. 
Gould, Henry W. Haynes, Russell Sturgis, Jr., and F. H. Underwood, 
several lawyers, to mention only a few of the men of prominence. 

In 1865, 1866, and 1867 he served in the Common Council, where 
he was associated with Alexander Wadsworth, William W. Warren, 
Benjamin F. Stevens, Francis W. Palfrey, Clement Willis, John C. 
Haynes, Solomon B. Stebbins, Benjamin Dean, Lewis Rice, Henry 
W. Hyde, and many other well-known citizens. 

He was for a time a trustee of the City Hospital, and was a delegate 
to attend the funeral of President Abraham Lincoln. In July, 1865, 
he was appointed Assistant United States District Attorney for 
Massachusetts under Richard H. Dana, and continued as such with 
him and his successor George S. Hillard until 1869. He then became, 
by appointment of President Grant, Assistant Attorney General of the 
United States under Judge Hoar, then Attorney General, with whom 
he continued till August, 1870. On April 80, 1869, he was delegated 
by President Grant " to perform the duties of Attorney General of 
the United States during the temporary absence of Hon. E. R. Hoar." 

General Bristow has spoken of him as the ablest Assistant Attorney 
General he had ever known. 

Upon his resignation as Assistant Attorney General in 1870 he 
became a partner in the law firm of Jewell, Gaston, and Field, with 



MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 57 

offices at 5 Tremont Street. In 1875 Mr. Gaston, having been elected 
Governor, retired from the firm, and Edward 0. Shepard being ad- 
mitted, the firm became Jewell, Field, and Shepard. Judge Field 
continued in the active practice of his profession and with distin- 
guished success until his appointment to the bench. His practice 
was largely in the Supreme Court, The firm were counsel for several 
large corporations, and the character of their general business im- 
portant. He appeared before the court more often than before juries, 
and in cases of the former sort was perhaps at his best. His character 
and temperament, however, gave him power before juries. 

He never aimed at display or so-called oratory. But he was 
always clear and strong, and could become eloquent in the best sense 
of the term, from the force and point of his statement, the strength 
of his own convictions in the right of his case, and his determination 
to do it the fullest justice. His arguments before the court in banc 
upon questions of law were always especially able and effective. 

While he was at the bar he took much interest in politics, munici- 
pal, state, and national. He was delegate to conventions, a chair- 
man of the Committee on Resolutions at a State convention, and 
wherever and however serving was always efficient. In 1876 he was 
the Republican candidate for Congress from the third district. His 
election was contested. The question was a narrow and peculiar one. 
He received 9,245 votes upon the regular ballot and 25 votes in the 
same district upon the Prohibition ticket, which described the can- 
didate as of the fourth district. It was before the day of the 
Australian Ballot and Election Commissioners. His opponent, Ben- 
jamin Dean, the Democratic candidate, received 9,315 votes. Rev. 
Dr. Miner, chairman of the Prohibition Committee, testified before 
the Board of Aldermen, as canvassers of the election returns, that 
the ballots of the party he represented were wrongly printed and were 
intended for Walbridge A. Field's candidacy. The aldermen made 
returns to the Secretary of State in favor of the Republican candidate, 
and he received the certificate of election. Mr. Dean contested the 
case before the United States House of Representatives, which was 
then Democratic, and was given the seat, March 28, 1878. 

In 1878 Judge Field and Mr. Dean were again the candidates for 

8 



58 MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 

the House of Representatives, and the election resulted in favor of 
Judge Field by a majority of 441. At the expiration of his term in 
Congress he declined to be a candidate for re-election. 

While in the thick of the contest as to the disputed seat, it is under- 
stood he was offered a place on the bench of the Supreme Court by 
Governor Rice, but feeling that he owed a duty to his constituents, 
and that to retire might result in the loss of the district to his party, 
he declined to have his name considered, however agreeable and 
honorable the position. 

His service in Congress was brief, but long enough to give him 
prominence. He was a strong party man, but his fair-mindedness, 
his sense of justice, public and private, his desire to do right every- 
where, his judicial temperament, were as conspicuous here as else- 
where, and were recognized. He cared not so much for filling the 
columns of the Congressional Record, as for looking out for the 
public welfare by vote, by voice, and by service. His career in Con- 
gress, in a field perhaps not wholly congenial, was creditable to 
himself and the State. 

A man's home life hardly belongs to the dry pages of a memoir 
like this. It is enough to say that all those qualities which so en- 
deared Judge Field to the wide and ever widening body of friends 
found here full scope and play, — his gentleness, warmth of feeling, 
kindness and courtesy, and his power of drawing all to him, so that 
even the little children of his street watched for his coming and 
welcomed him as if of their own household. October 4, 1869, he was 
married to Miss Eliza Ellen McLoon, the daughter of William McLoon 
and Hannah (Keating), of Rockland, Maine. She died March 8, 
1877, leaving two children, Eleanor Louise and Elizabeth Lenthal. 
October 31, 1882, he was married to Miss Frances Eaton Farwell, 
daughter of Hon. Nathan Allen Farwell, of Rockland, Maine. 

Judge Field was for a long time connected with the South Con- 
gregational Church, under the charge of Rev. Dr. Edward Everett 
Hale, and a member of its standing committee. Of his services here 
it has been said of him that his legal knowledge, his good common 
sense, his practical wisdom as a man of affairs, his sound judgment, 
his delicate moral sense, and his warm interest in the church made 
him an invaluable member. 



MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 59 

He was a member of many societies and organizations ; among 
them the Vermont Association of Boston, the Dartmouth Club, the 
Union Club, the University Club, the Law Club, the Art Club, the 
Saturday Club, so noted for the literary standing and distinction of 
its members, and of which he was at one time the president. He 
was interested and active in the general association of the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society, and one of its senators ; in the Alumni Association of 
Dartmouth College, and its president; in the New England Historic 
Genealogical Society, and in the Massachusetts Historical Society. 

He was chosen a resident member of our society, April 12, 1894. 
His official duties and engagements prevented him from being a con- 
stant or even a frequent attendant of its meetings. The like reason 
kept him from writing any papers or communications, but when 
present he was ready to take part in its discussions. At the February 
meeting in 1895 he spoke upon the death of Judge Hoar. 

The degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Harvard University 
in 1886 and by Dartmouth College in 1888. 

It is as a member of the highest court of the Commonwealth that 
Judge Field will be most widely known and lastingly remembered. 
The fame of a lawyer is fleeting ; of the most illustrious names only 
the shadow is left in later years. With a judge it is otherwise, and 
this may be one of the compensations for laborious days and scant 
remuneration. 

Judge Field was appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme 
Judicial Court on February 21, 1881, upon the resignation of Seth 
Ames, and took his seat two days later. On the 4th of September, 
1890, he was appointed Chief Justice, upon the resignation of Marcus 
Morton. 

Certain qualities have often been set down as essential to a good 
nisi prius judge or a justice sitting singly. A few among them, — 
adequate learning, legal instinct, familiarity with decisions, mastery 
of pleading, practice, and procedure, grip of principles, knowledge of 
human nature and ability to read men, power to grasp, sift, and 
balance evidence, coolness and courtesy, patience and sound common 
sense, clearness and accuracy of statement, the capacity to hold well 
in hand a trial or a hearing, good judgment, and the mastership of 



60 MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE. 

the situation, whatever it may be. Of these Judge Field had many, 
and also the superadded qualification of a successful Chief Justice, — 
executive and administrative ability. 

The general recognition by the public of the fitness of each 
appointment was most striking. And this was especially so in the 
case of the Chief Justiceship, when among the names mentioned 
in connection with the place were those of men of remarkable and 
unusual qualifications and most brilliant reputation, — leaders of 
the bar of the highest eminence, and a fellow member of the bench, 
the brilliant lawyer and the finished orator, the elegant scholar, the 
distinguished soldier, the chivalrous and accomplished gentleman, — 
and when general acquiescence in the result was something hardly 
to have been expected. It was certainly no slight tribute to the 
man. 

Judge Field's judicial life lies recorded between the 130th volume 
of the Massachusetts Reports, which announces his appointment to 
the bench, and the 174th volume, which announces his death, and 
his judicial work between the 131st and 173d volumes. 

His first opinion appears in vol. 131, April 11, 1881, dealing with 
a question of contributory negligence, and his last in vol. 173, in 
1899, involving a point of practice, and his sole opinion in the 
volume. 

The number of opinions written by him while upon the bench is 
very nearly eight hundred ; exclusive of any per curiam opinions, 
a considerable part of which he would naturally write, and exclusive 
of any opinions rendered in response to questions submitted by 
other branches of the government. It would be impossible within 
any due limits here to attempt any analysis of these eight hundred, 
or even to enumerate the subjects included in them. There are few 
perhaps which may be called epoch-making opinions, and the oc- 
casion for such are naturally infrequent. They all bring out the 
quickness and clearness with which he seized upon the points of a 
case, his accuracy and precision of statement, the founding and plac- 
ing the decision upon fundamental grounds, and making it square 
with the great principles of justice. He was a laborious worker and 
writer. While he could frame an order or a decree or a rule off- 



MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 61 

hand, as exigency required, accurately and felicitously, he was never 
satisfied with an opinion he had written, but subjected it to revision 
and emendation, till often he had written and rewritten it several 
times ; as he once said, it was never safe until it was out of his 
hands. This constant revision was not for the purpose of changing 
the result or varying the grounds, but to modify the expression or 
statement, so as to make sure that there was no loophole for mis- 
understanding, no possibility of misconstruction, and that it em- 
bodied the precise meaning he intended to convey. Hence he found 
his place hard and wearing beyond what it would otherwise have 
been. 

The opinions cover a great variety of subjects and points, and 
illustrate the number and range of the matters coming before the 
court of last resort, and the complexity and importance of the ques- 
tions requiring its decisions. New questions or new phases of old 
questions are constantly coming up. Certain fundamental princi- 
ples of law may be firmly established, but their application to new 
and ever-varying conditions growing out of social and economic 
changes, new enterprises, new agencies, often present difficulties not 
easily solved. It is often easier to say what the law should be than 
what it is. Over and beyond profound learning the legal instinct is 
necessary. However exacting the labor devolving upon any judge 
may be, the strain upon any member of an appellate court is intense 
and almost unbroken. 

Judge Field's judicial life is written enduringly in those more 
than forty volumes of the Massachusetts Reports, and it is enough 
to say here that he well sustained the character and standing that 
has always belonged to the judiciary of this Commonwealth, and fills 
an honorable place in the long line of illustrious names that grace 
and dignify its highest tribunal. 

During his administration as Chief Justice the Supreme Court 
removed from its old quarters in the Court House on Court Street 
and was installed in the new Court House in Pemberton Square. 
Many of the details of arrangement had been made under his 
immediate supervision, and much of the work of settling down and 
establishing it in its new domains devolved on him. 



62 MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 

He was always interested in historical matters, and this appears in 
many of his written decisions. While Chief Justice he found much 
satisfaction in collecting and preserving memorials not only of his 
predecessors in office, but of the many justices who had sat upon the 
bench of the court from the earliest times down to his own day, and 
the eminent lawyers who had practised at its bar. A result of his 
efforts appears in an extensive collection of autographs, likenesses, 
and various memorials of those worthies of the elder and the later 
day. These find a fitting abiding place in one of the consultation 
rooms, which is fitted up with the solid old furniture that belonged 
to its former lobby. The work which he happily began and started 
an interest in has been since kept up. 

For a long time before his death he had been in failing health, 
and as time went on his suffering was often intense. But he gave 
no outward sign of the struggle, either in manner or expression, 
and without flinching held on serenely with heroic fortitude, asking 
and taking no exemption. 

In January, 1899, his physicians counselled a complete rest from 
his official duties. When he hesitated and shrank from acceding to 
their advice, in his fear of causing a delay or interruption in the 
work of the court, the Bar Association conveyed to him most grace- 
fully a unanimous vote, asking him to listen to that advice and take 
the needed rest. His brethren on the bench gave every assistance 
within their power and whatever relief was possible. He had the 
heroic temper, the feeling of the soldier, that he could not leave his 
post. On the morning of the 15th of July the end came and he 
died, — the tenth Chief Justice of the court to die in office. 

His funeral was at the South Congregational Church, in Exeter 
Street. The service was conducted by Rev. Dr. Hale, and the pall- 
bearers were President William J. Tucker of Dartmouth College, 
Justice Gray of the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge 
Holmes of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, ex-Governor 
Brackett, by whom he was appointed Chief Justice, Judge Sherman 
of the Superior Court, Charles Francis Adams, and Richard Olney. 

The church was filled, though it was the broken period of mid- 
summer. As was said by a leading journal, " Nothing could have 



MEMOIR BY JOHX NOBLE 63 

more clearly evidenced the breadth and depth of the community's 
respect and esteem for the late Chief Justice than the congregation, 
drawn from almost every rank of life, which assembled at the church 
to do honor to his memory. Not only were eminent jurists and 
members of leading bar associations present, but there were also 
in attendance men of all professions, callings, and occupations. It 
was a singularly scholarly gathering and a notable one, and those 
who composed it came not from Boston and Massachusetts alone, 
but from most of the States of New England." 

The Commonwealth was represented by the Governor and Lieu- 
tenant Governor, and the city of Boston by its mayor and other 
officers ; there were the judges of all the courts, leading lawyers of 
the city and the whole Commonwealth, delegates from the numerous 
societies and organizations with which he was connected, officials of 
the Church and of the State, and citizens of every class. The ser- 
vice, simple as he himself would have desired, was touching and 
most impressive from the depth of feeling and affection manifested 
everywhere in the large congregation. 

The public memorial tributes were fittingly closed by the meel 
of the bar of the Commonwealth in November. In the court room 
from whose bench he had himself so feelingly and appropriately re- 
sponded to the resolutions upon the death of Judge Hoar and of his 
late associate Judge Devens, were gathered the leading lawyers, not 
only of Boston, but from every part of the State, and the younger 
men who came with a peculiar feeling of love and veneration oi his 
memory. The words which were spoken were impressive not only 
in themselves, but even more in the depth of feeling which underlay 
them all. The address of Attorney General Knowlton, the resol - 
tions adopted by the bar, and the response of the court are en1 
upon the records of the court. The proceedings are sei in full 

in volume 17-4 of the Massachusetts Reports. Perhaps a single ex- 
tract may be taken from the resolutio:.- - briefs omaiyof - ... 
of the leading characteristics of the Chief Justice as she 
official career, in the judgment of the bar, though the whole 
be required to give a just and adequate appreciation, 

u His interests and I - ... scholarly. His reading was wide 



64 MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 

and his knowledge deep and thorough. His learning was accurate. 
His mental equipment was mathematical and practical rather than 
metaphysical and theoretical. He dealt with the concrete rather than 
the abstract. No subject of human knowledge was too great for his 
comprehension, no distinction too small to escape his attention. Un- 
tiringly diligent, his retentive memory preserved the fruits of a wise 
industry. His mind was well ordered. It was too well balanced for 
exaggeration. Open and candid in all his methods, he was quick to 
detect any subtlety. For him sophistry had no attraction. He had 
in a remarkable degree that indispensable attribute of a great judge, 
common sense, which has been aptly defined by one of his predeces- 
sors in his great office as an ' instinctive knowledge of the true re- 
lation of things.' 

" Ample, ready and well digested learning, common sense, power, 
accuracy of perception, discriminating analysis, skill to apply old 
principles to new cases, impartiality, charity, patience, moderation, 
industry, courtesy, integrity, and public spirit have ever character- 
ized our judiciary, but Chief Justice Field had all these quali- 
ties, with manly modesty, sweetness of temper, pure-mindedness, 
gentleness of heart and beauty of character, in rare and perfect 
combination." 

The words of the Attorney General were full of warm and reverent 
affection and brought out eloquently and forcibly the life and charac- 
ter of Judge Field. Chief Justice Holmes's response, speaking in 
the name of the court but with his own personality shaping the 
whole, was a most impressive and touching tribute to the memory of 
his predecessor. The delicate discrimination, the keen appreciation, 
the warmth of affection, and the intensity of feeling running through 
it all, make any selection from it a break in its impressiveness. 

How the community regarded Chief Justice Field, its high estima- 
tion of him as a man and as a magistrate, the confidence reposed 
in him, the love and admiration everywhere felt, and the sense of 
loss to it in his death, come out with singular force in the comments 
of the press, in the proceedings of societies, in the expression of men 
of all sorts and conditions as well as in those of his near associates 
and friends. There is room only for the merest reference to them 
here. 



MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 65 

Any attempted analysis of a man's characteristics is often on the 
one hand cold and hard and dry, or on the other partial and vague or 
indiscriminate praise. Its results may be dependent on the point of 
view, the occasion, the relation. When, however, the conclusions 
are concurrent, the points sharply defined, the final estimate unvary- 
ing, such characterization carries conviction of its accuracy and 
justice. 

In the case of Judge Field the qualities dwelt upon are : an all- 
round development of character, intellectual strength, soundness of 
judgment, excellent sense, ripe scholarship, breadth of learning, — 
general as well as legal, — a mind of extreme quickness of perception, 
fertility of suggestion, comprehensive, absorbent, tenacious ; of won- 
derful keenness and activity, trained and developed to a remarkable 
degree. 

All recount his devotion to duty, his regard for public interests, 
his intense desire to do absolute justice and the thing which he be- 
lieved to be right. They speak of his untiring diligence, his even- 
ness of temper and sweetness of disposition, a patience which 
seemed exhaustless, a fine sense of honor, the courage of his convic- 
tions, and his unswerving independence, his absolute integrity. He 
was a man of liberal views, elegant tastes, free-handed and generous. 
He was thoroughly democratic in all his feelings and ways, his re- 
gard for the rights of others scrupulous and unvarying, and his 
honesty of purpose everywhere apparent. He had a keen sense of 
humor, enjoyed a bright remark or a good joke, and was himself ready 
at either, with a faculty for putting a thing sharply and concretely in 
old New England fashion. He had the utmost kindness of heart ; 
sensitive himself, he was regardful of the feelings of others. Quick 
and keen of apprehension as he was, if he was ever impatient of dul- 
ness he never showed it. He had, perhaps, a touch of imperiousness 
in his natural disposition, which he was conscious of and perhaps 
proud of as his by right of inheritance ; but it was always held in 
check, and seldom, if ever, manifested. He was courteous alike to 
all, and in bearing and instincts in the best sense a gentleman. 
Such, without individualizing them, were the judgments passed upon 
him. 

9 



QQ MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 

The resolutions adopted by the Curtis Club conclude : " He rep- 
resented the best product of New England life ; a just and able 
magistrate, a public-spirited and unselfish citizen ; — a true man ; in 
all the relations of strength and tenderness, a life sweetened and 
adorned by a rare modesty which seemed to conceal from himself 
the virtues and ability which were apparent to all other eyes." 

At a meeting of the Association of the Alumni of Dartmouth 
College resolutions were presented by Judge Richardson, a fellow- 
student of his in college, later a trustee of his Alma Mater, and a life- 
long friend, in the course of which it was said : " It has been the 
happy lot of but few men to have been given, in such felicitous union, 
so many very great qualities, with so many lovable and charming 
traits of person in the affairs of friendship and private life. To 
splendid natural intellectual power, cultivated with untiring industry, 
improved by great learning, and adorned by brilliant scholarship, were 
joined a fine moral sense, generous sentiments, kindness of heart, and 
all those qualities which give to friendship and society their enjoy- 
ment and charm. He was absolutely truthful ; he had perfect integ- 
rity, a vigorous sense and love of justice, which secured and held the 
confidence of men in his great office, and withal a sweetness of tem- 
per, an innate kindness, a regard for others, and a gentleness which 
won the affection of those who had the happiness to know him more 
intimately ; and over all, illumining all, was the radiance of an ab- 
solutely pure personal moral character." 

But the bench, the bar, close friends and associates, the press and 
the general public, were not alone in paying tribute to his memory. 
The Church bore witness to its appreciation of that element of char- 
acter, dwelt upon and felt by all, but which had for it an especial 
appeal. 

At the funeral service the Rev. Dr. Hale referred to Judge Field's 
decisions as said to bear always on the eternal principles of things 
and to be based on the eternal principles of law and justice ; and, 
after quoting from the scriptural account of the judges of Israel, 
said of the Chief Justice : " Judges are those to whom the word of 
God has come ; Judge Field knew the word of God, had heard the 
voice of God, and knew how to make it a part of his daily life." 



MEMOIR BY JOHN NOBLE 67 

What had been said of another was not unfitly applied to the 
Chief Justice : " When death transplanted him to his place in the 
garden of the Lord, he found little that was perishable to prune 
away." 

The Rev. Dr. Gordon wrote of him : " He was sent forth with the 
measuring rod of righteousness in his hand ; in the strength of the 
eternal righteousness he used his high instrument ; he was ever in 
sympathy with the Supreme purpose." 

And the estimate of many others, varying in the expression, 
might be summed up in the words of that brief but wonderfully 
complete account given of one of old : He " walked with God : and he 
was not ; for God took him." 



